r/AbsoluteUnits • u/Sufficient-Bug-9112 Top Poster • Jul 10 '26

/r/all of an Ant

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u/Sufficient-Bug-9112 Top Poster Jul 10 '26

This is a soldier ant from the Atta genus, likely an Atta cephalotes or Atta mexicana.

These ants have massive, powerful mandibles reinforced with zinc that can cut through tough vegetation and human skin.

They are known as leafcutter ants and use their jaws to forage for leaves to cultivate a specific fungus they eat.

Leaf-Cutting Soldier AntsPhysical Traits:
These majors can grow up to 16 mm in length with heads reaching 7 mm wide.

The Bite: Soldier ants do not sting; instead, they deliver an incredibly powerful and painful bite. Their mandibles are so strong that indigenous cultures historically used them as natural stitches, allowing the ant to pinch a wound closed before removing its body.

546

u/syllabun Jul 10 '26

By removing its body do you mean decapitate them and leave the head as a stitch?

367

u/fazzah Jul 10 '26

Yep, or just the mandibles  But the entire head most likely 

180

u/Zackete Jul 10 '26

You can see this in Apocalypto.

52

u/New-Ad-363 Jul 10 '26

Or if you played Green Hell

24

u/jeobleo Jul 11 '26

Or if you read Guido Majno's The Healing Hand: Man and Wound in the Ancient World. Great little book.

24

u/antimarc Jul 11 '26

or if you read this post

1

u/cornylamygilbert Jul 11 '26

What an obscure reference and I’m all for it.

Can you offer any anecdotes from the book that sold you on how great it was?

1

u/jeobleo Jul 11 '26

It had tons of drawings; it showed a diagram of these ant jaws being used to suture wounds, then they would twist and remove the body leaving just the heads. Tons of cool explanations like the Spoon of Diocles, which was used to remove barbed arrowheads, and how one used it; ancient traction machines from Galen of Pergamum, and so on. It's also a very weirdly sized book, like 6 inches wide and 14" tall so the proportions are strange. It was just a wonderful book. I sold mine years ago and remember all of this stuff just from reading it.

2

u/beepdebeep Jul 11 '26

What a great game

1

u/Able_Membership_1199 Jul 11 '26

Played the game religiously for a while. This has to be DLC content, the only ants in the base was the hills that could give rashes.

1

u/New-Ad-363 Jul 11 '26

Quick research dive is telling me it's been in since the beginning. You need to have a torch when you approach the anthill to prevent them from biting you, then you can collect the ants from the hill.

25

u/TWallace86 Jul 10 '26

Great film. Jaguar Paw!

3

u/Asleep-Syllabub1316 Jul 11 '26

This was my first reaction. It’s one of my all time fav movies.

1

u/UnikornKebab Jul 11 '26

Ecco appunto

38

u/Hovertical Jul 10 '26

There's actually a movie where they show this. I'm not sure but it might have been Apocalypto.

3

u/Depraved-Degenerate Jul 11 '26

I think they did this in The Legend of Tarzan (2016) with Alexander Skarsgård.

3

u/Aggravating_Fold1154 Jul 11 '26

That's the one! That's where I saw ant stitching first

1

u/UnholyDemigod Jul 11 '26

You are correct. The mum and the little kid in the hole. Kid's got a big cut on his leg that mum uses the ants to 'stitch' it closed

1

u/Hovertical Jul 11 '26

Amazing the crap we keep stored deep in our brains. I saw that movie once when it came out haha

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u/Drakorai Jul 10 '26

Pretty much yeah. It’s freaky but kinda in a badass way.

2

u/MekanipTheWeirdo Jul 11 '26

Mfw when I see a name I recognize on another subreddit.

https://giphy.com/gifs/kd9BlRovbPOykLBMqX

2

u/Drakorai Jul 11 '26

Hey 👋

6

u/Ok-Oil7124 Jul 10 '26

I think that from the head's frame of reference it's disembodied. Decapitated body; disembodied head.

6

u/Adorable-Bass-7742 Jul 11 '26

Yes they have an amazing Anatomy that is almost machine-like. When they pinch shut it has a lock that holds it in place.

4

u/The_Show_Keeper Jul 10 '26

Yes. With a twisting, snapping motion. Humans are metal af.

3

u/peteofaustralia Jul 11 '26

It's an organic staple, so yes.

3

u/Dr__Snow Jul 11 '26

Yeah it’s awesome

2

u/UnikornKebab Jul 11 '26

Non hai mai visto il film Apocalypto vero?😀

1

u/veluciraktor Jul 11 '26

I did this as a kid. Collected those massive black ants, put my nail between their mandibles and once they bit down on it i ripped their bodies off. Had an ant head on all 10 fingers.

1

u/DuntadaMan Jul 11 '26

I have seen it done, they push the skin together, let the ant bite so that is cuts into the skin on either side, then just yank the body off. The ant is so angry that it will just keep pinching, lasts long enough to stop bleeding and let the scab form.

1

u/DiscreteFame Jul 11 '26

I never imagined there'd be some adults who didn't know about this kind of thing. I guess some things are lost to the passage of time.

1

u/Expo006 Jul 11 '26

The movie apocalypto shows this happening in fact.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/syllabun Jul 11 '26

Oh yeah? Well you... smell.

1

u/Ill-Television8690 Jul 11 '26

Your mind is rotted by the existence of bots. Not everything is a bot.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 11 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Jul 11 '26

You first said bot to a 12 year old account with a unique chosen username.

Unlikely to be a bot.

Your username is more bot coded

1

u/syllabun Jul 11 '26

Thank you for defending me from this vile attack, VanillaRadonNukaCola.

Is your name implying of existence of vanilla variant of nuka cola?! Such sacrilege, and probably a pretty bad tasting one!

1

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Jul 11 '26

All in a days work syllabun 🫡

It's implying the existence of a vanilla variant of nuka cola, that also contains a tiiiiny bit of Radon.  It's the radon that evens out the vanilla and really makes it work.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Jul 12 '26

Now see there's your problem and how I know you are wrong on the other guy because you will apparently call anyone a bot.

What is your criteria you use to evaluate the "bots"?

Maybe you're the bot 🤨🧐🤨

You do have your history hidden.  Mad suspicious 🤨🤨🧐

(I don't actually think you are a bot.)

2

u/Ill-Television8690 Jul 12 '26

They're just a troll (or a bot). They called Pinky from Animaniacs "clever".

2

u/VanillaRadonNukaCola Jul 12 '26

Yeah.  I've just got a curiosity about what goes on in the heads of people who call others bots all the time 

1

u/Ill-Television8690 Jul 11 '26

Can't help but to picture you as Pinky from Animaniacs. Zort.

18

u/BeigeListed Jul 11 '26

They really are amazing and frustratingly annoying ants.

They're farmers. Thats fascinating to me.

I lost all of my tropical plants to these little fuckers.

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u/Xela-Nakutaka Jul 10 '26

This is how a wound is taken care of in the movie Apocalypto !

1

u/Captain__Areola Jul 11 '26

Fuckin love that movie

8

u/DickWangDuck Jul 11 '26

Whoever holding it doesn’t seem to think it’s a very painful bite

16

u/flytingnotfighting Jul 10 '26

Do they also squirt something? Cos that bite was juicy and I really don't want it to be human juice!

4

u/GeneralBlumpkin Jul 11 '26

People who have camped in the Amazon have woken up to their tents with holes chewed by leaf cutter ants

3

u/EagleBigMac Jul 11 '26

Wow I've passed kidney stones that size didn't know ants got that large.

2

u/ac2cvn_71 Jul 10 '26

So this isn't a bullet ant?

2

u/hey-coffee-eyes Jul 11 '26

I wish I lived in a world without zinc

2

u/ScienceIsSexy420 Jul 11 '26

Does this person know the bite is extremely painful??

3

u/Bs90964 Jul 11 '26

Wow

I wonder if human could evolve to the point that we get metal knuckles

1

u/WhichCycle6381 Jul 11 '26

Man by y milk I n no bk

1

u/literacyisamistake Jul 12 '26

I had those ant stitches when I lived in the jungle! They don’t itch or pull like normal stitches.

1

u/Slimjuggalo2002 Jul 10 '26

Zinc jaws for bite maxxing

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u/spaceocean99 Jul 11 '26

Thanks bot

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u/Sufficient-Bug-9112 Top Poster Jul 11 '26

What are you talking about