Kenya’s Reticulated Giraffe lives on the unpalatble thorny acacia tree because it is rich in nitrogen. The Crematgaster Ants nest in the hollow thorns.
Who would have thought that a bettong would need a bandicoot, that the leaf-cutter ant would need a maned wolf, or, indeed, that the gecko would need a giraffe?
George McGavin and his team conduct a unique experiment to discover the lives of a leaf-cutter ant colony.
George McGavin “Our project will show their world as it’s never been seen before, and reveal what they can teach us about ourselves.”
Professor Adam Hart explains how ants use pheromones to control the colony. Dr. David Grimaldi discusses the success of eusocial insects.
To the human ear the world of ants is a silent world but ants do use sound, stridulation, to communicate in the most remarkable manner.
An ant farm in the laboratory gives scientists, George McGavin and Adam Hart, a unique opportunity to observe these fascinating creatures.
Going down the size scale, this small ant is called a media worker. These are the ants that collect and bring leaves back to the nest. Its serrated jaws are just the right shape for cutting into tough plant material.
Adam Hart and George McGavin discover how the queen lays up to 30,00 eggs per day and how the worker ants nurture the development of the different ant castes.
So the workers who feed the larva they are actually controlling the number of soldiers and worker castes produced within the colony.
Adam Hart visits Nathan Mlot at Georgie Institute of Technology to discover the unique aquatic abilities of the fire ant. – Solenopsis invicta.
This remarkable ability allows the fire ants to survive the worst floods of the Amazon. Cooperation has made them an engineering marvel of the natural world. And one of the most successful ant species on the planet.
The ant colony from Trinidad is placed in the artificial ant nest and the soldier ants are radio-tagged to monitor their movements.
It’s this kind of collective endeavour that has made ants so fascinating to us humans down the ages. During the Industrial Revolution, when factory life was transforming human society, the parallels were striking.
Professor Adam Hart travels to Trinidad where, with the help of Andy Stevenson, he locates a suitable ant colony for the experiment. Leafcutter ants are native to Trinidad.
The queen is huge compared to other ants, and she’ll be covered in smaller ants, who tend her.
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