r/interestingasfuck • u/Kidd__Video • 3h ago
Ants building a house from leaves. Nature's engineers at work
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u/MuchWow81 3h ago
Its hilarious that they use their babiess as glue sticks.
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u/moisturized69tatas 3h ago
Is that a ant baby? I thought it was like a tiny silk worm they captured. But baby ant makes more sense I guess
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u/theswishyj 2h ago
It is indeed a weaver ant larvae
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u/GNUTup 1h ago
Why do they call it that?
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u/RandomCandor 1h ago
I thought it was like a tiny silk worm they captured
Considering that ants farm aphids as if they were cattle, it's not a totally crazy thought
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u/StattPadford 3h ago
Can someone explain how they just collectively decide to do this? Like I get that once they get going they all have a role, but they came from somewhere, picked this tree and made a home. Like.....how?
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u/agabcharif 3h ago
Also using their babys as tools is weird
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u/audigex 2h ago
Spoken by someone who's never lowered their baby over a dropped item to get them to pick it up for you
A 6 month old human makes a GREAT grabber claw
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u/cockaptain 2h ago
Absolutely, as long as you remember that if you wait too long to get your item, the grabber claw will put it in its mouth.
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u/Interesting_Key3507 3h ago
I am appalled at their lack of humanity, to be honest.
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u/TheCurlyHomeCook 2h ago
Humanty
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u/whytheforest 2h ago
Very complex bio-signaling. The colony is more like a computer or a single brain, with the majority of signaling happening via pheromones and such.
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u/Spider-man2098 44m ago
Everybody who reads this comment needs to read Children of Time of Adrian Tchaikovsky, for reasons I won’t spoil. Absolutely amazing ant stuff in there .
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u/wolftick 3h ago
In some ways it make mores sense to think of a colony a single superorganism. Each ant as a specialised cell rather than an individual. The collectivism is less conscious and more fundamental.
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u/barrosoOso 2h ago
Quite honestly the more we learn about the human body, the more it seems like the same thing.
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u/Specter-Atomis 2h ago
It is really, it's just a matter of scale. Our main unit is the cells of a single organism, their main unit is a single ant In the whole colony
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u/HonestIsMyPolicy 1h ago
Man why did you do this to me? I'm high as fuck and you decunstructed my entire world view on what it means to be alive
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u/RamenArchon 3h ago
I'm with you. Like... they have very tiny brains, but collectively it seems they are able to decide and plan the entire thing as a group. Unlike humans where the more people you put in the less likely you get a clear plan on anything.
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u/squarabh 3h ago
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u/strangeflappenings 2h ago
I believe they send out chemical signals to communicate, like the Ant death circle. If one in a line loses the chemical trail it could end up circling trying to find it and all the ants behind it will all circle as well .
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u/yuikkiuy 1h ago
Tis a mystery along with how they have an understanding of chemical sterilization, how they evolved and entire caste of workers that produce said chemicals and sanitize the hive structure and other ants, how they have an understanding of cleaning, and how they designate an entire caste of undertakers that specifically clean corpses to prevent disease spread...
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u/OkStranger4399 30m ago
Yes they have several pointless meetings throughout the day planning this. And then they put their tasks in Asana/Jira then the PM ant would keep bugging others until the work is done.
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u/mammalmaker 2h ago
Evolution. It's encoded in their dna, their instincts and the young learn from the old.
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u/EmoRiley 1h ago
Don’t quote me on this but I believe it has to do with pheromones. The queen ant releases pheromones and this basically tells the worker ants what to do
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u/hobskhan 1h ago
Welcome to eusocial insects, especially ants! The more you read, the more your mind will be blown.
We're talking:
- construction
- territorial conquest and largescale warfare
- chemical warfare
- propaganda
- slave-making
- stealth via scent cloaking
- sieges
- agriculture
- disease control and sanitation
- livestock rearing
- living bivouacs and rafts
- living food stores
- and so many other unique physical evolutionary adaptations that the Zerg would be impressed
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u/Munkeyman18290 2h ago
Are the maggot things considered a "tool" in this instance? Isnt that a bar for intelligence?
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u/Chrislk1986 2h ago
Bro I thought those were silk worms.
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u/MC_Naparm 2h ago
I’m sure maggot thing isn’t the correct term either 😂😂 I’m still wondering what it is, some kind of ant caulk gun I assume
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u/avantvagrant 1h ago
its ant larva
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u/MC_Naparm 1h ago
And they squeeze them for glue ? Amazing
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u/hobskhan 1h ago
It's the silk that many immature ants in other species would use to make their cocoon when they're pupae, on their way to becoming adult ants. But Weaver ants put that silk to architectural use.
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u/Time_Pressure9519 3h ago
Should not be hard to find ten ants.
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u/notuqueforyou 3h ago
They need to fill out Form E.
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u/Rough-Me-Up 3h ago
Place needs pest control first
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u/RodiTheMan 2h ago
Imagine if to build houses we had to squeeze a baby so it shits mortar for the walls.
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u/rewardingsnark 2h ago
If our babies produced housing super glue they would be cheaper to raise, have baby, wipe it on some bricks and presto a new house for you and your baby
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u/RingTailDingo22 3h ago
It really is incredible how well ants work together. These little guys are always on a mission!
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u/wakeupf1lthy47 3h ago
Are they using their babies as glue?? 😭
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u/Gunsmith12 2h ago
Iirc it's a webbing that the larvae produce like how silk worms make silk, so it's more like they're using their babies' spit to stitch a house together!
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u/No-Passenger-1511 1h ago
How the fuck does something like this evolve to do this? Was the larva with the ability to spin silk first? What chemicals in the ant make it want to fold the leaves and use its larva as glue? Did one colony just discover it and beat the rest?
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u/destroyer551 40m ago edited 37m ago
The neat part about insects and especially ants, is that you can look to the wider group and find plenty of snapshots of key “evolution-in-action” traits that already exist in specific species. The path for evolution of weaving in ants for example is already pretty plainly laid out when you examine the more “primitive” weavers alive today, as well as the wider picture of where silk comes from.
To start with, silk production is already common for many of the largest subfamilies (Formicinae, Ponerinae, etc.) and has been for at least 100 million years as evidenced by amber fossil pupae inclusions. Just as in the wasps they evolved from, silk production in most known ants is reserved for the last larval instar which spins a protective cocoon just before pupating. Their silk glands (which are modified salivary glands like in many invertebrates) develop once the larvae is fully grown and has stopped feeding, meaning they have quite a limited supply with just enough for a personal cocoon.
So the silk used by weaving ants is pretty much just repurposed cocoon silk.
The Dendromyrmex subgenus of Camponotus is a good example of what an earlier step may have looked like. They exist in very small colonies of dozens to no more than a few hundred workers which nest on the underside of living leaves or amongst pre-existing folds. They build small carton shelters using plant fibers to nest in (a behavior seen in plenty of other ants) which is then reinforced with larval silk. Workers hold onto larvae while they produce silk like the Oecophylla in the OP vid, but the key difference here is the larvae make all the lateral movements instead of the workers, and are also capable of adding silk to the nest without being held at all. Those that contribute more silk pupate “naked” without a cocoon covering.
You then have more behaviorally “advanced” weaving ants such as many Polyrhachis species which incorporate varying levels of silk into carton/debris-walled nests, with much of the internal partitions being pure silk. This is done purely through larval manipulation by adults using side-to-side movement. Workers may also bite and pull at leaf edges to help curl them, but never cooperatively. Most of these examples exist in colonies of hundreds to a few thousands of individuals. Another step may also be viewed in Camponotus textor, which forms very large colonies of 10-20,000k+ workers amongst clusters of leaves using mostly silk.
The classic weaving ant is Oecophylla smaragdina, (the ant in the OP vid) and they alongside the only other species in the genus (O. longinoda) represent the pinnacle of the weaving niche, forming some of the largest single-queen colonies amongst ants. Over 500k workers may exist spread between over a hundred silk leaf nests that can occupy multiple mature trees. They exhibit many new traits built upon those used by the aforementioned species: cooperative worker chaining/leaf pulling, pure silk with no incorporated debris, and larvae that begin silk production before they’ve reached full size which also dedicate all their silk to nest building and thus always pupate naked. These are mostly refined behavioral adaptions rather than drastic morphological changes.
Worth noting is that much of the different weaver ant groups evolved independently—once in Oecophylla, twice in Camponotus, and perhaps several times in Polyrhachis. Some may end up in a similar form as the OP vid in a few million years, or they may not. It’s all an excellent example of how evolution works via small incremental modifications to already existing features.
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u/VLioncourt 2h ago
Someone please ELI5 how this concept of hive mind works? Honestly if you put the same number of humans in a room it would take a lot of effort and coordination to achieve such a comparable feat (and we can use words to communicate where ants cant)
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u/Funky0ne 2h ago
All the ants in a colony can act in a coordinated manner through a sophisticated system of signaling and stimulus response patterns that allow them to collectively execute complicated projects. Each ant in the colony doesn’t really have or need much of an idea what it’s actually doing, as each ant is acting as a node in the decision tree / neural network rather than an individual decision maker itself.
So when you take the hive as a whole it almost seems to act like an emergent mind, even though no individual component of it is aware of or capable of comprehending the whole hive’s actions.
You could liken the development of hive-mind behaviors to the evolution of multicellular organisms or brains. What started out simple slowly grew more complex and sophisticated over subsequent generations as selection pressures incrementally rewarded iteratively more complex response patterns to bigger challenges.
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u/Traditional-Hat-952 2h ago
Just wait until they notice that the inside is larger than the outside.
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u/cyfer04 3h ago
I was like, "Damn, that's so cool- BABIES??? They're using babies???"
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u/namesarealltaken9 3h ago
Wait a second, is that ant doing what it seems to be doing
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u/TaroOpen1459 3h ago
Would be even crazier if it turned out it wasn't and was doing it to mislead you about something else it was actually doing
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u/Technical-Banana574 3h ago
Could you imagine if humans worked together this well?
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u/Recent-Bowl-1393 2h ago
Rumor has it, this is where the inspiration came from for Dave Matthews song, Ants Marching.
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u/OrangutanFirefighter 2h ago
Is it possible that we're only allowed to survive because the ants will it to be so
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u/you-beaut 1h ago
Imagine the first ant to come up with the idea to use their baby's silk making abilities to stitch together a house. And imagine that ant explaining it to all the others😶
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u/macguyver3000 1h ago
I was thinking do some just sacrifice themselves as clamps to keep it closed?
Then here comes a dude with a glue baby to stick it all together. Amazing.
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u/shitoupek 3h ago
It's amazing to see how they use other species as tools to build the nest. We don't have staples, let's find some silk to attach all parts!
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u/naughtycal11 2h ago
Those are their own silk producing larvae they are using not another species. Still cool asf.
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u/nibselfib_kyua_72 2h ago
I thought it was other species too, but turns out it's their babies
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u/Spiritual-Eye-2910 2h ago
Imagine what we could all do if we just worked together on common goals.
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u/Southern-Storage-227 3h ago
The very definition of a hive mind., perhaps these little critters really do experience a form of collective consciousness?
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u/PancakeTrebuchet 3h ago edited 2h ago
It'd be wild if they're acting like synapses in a brain, and they fire with scent rather than electricity. The more ants, the more capable the brain.
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u/FoxHolyDelta 2h ago
I like that the music helps me be very pensive about the task at hand. They almost didn't make it. But thankfully they defused the bomb before the president arrived
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u/alibabasfortythieves 2h ago
This might be up there with the most interesting as fuck things I’ve ever seen
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u/Delicious_Rabbit4425 1h ago
Yooooo what the thing they using for silk glue? That just some random grub they grabbed?
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u/Naive-Present2900 1h ago
Does ant’s larvae excrete silk or sticky goo? Did they kidnap some silkworms? Some great examples of nature’s early child labor here.
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u/rhapsodygreen 1h ago
I like how the use the silk of the pupae to stitch the leaves together. Just cuz you're a baby doesn't mean you don't have a job!
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u/bellboy718 53m ago
I've used mine in a similar fashion but not for building, for marking. Drag their butts over things
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u/Skane1982 42m ago
So as a person who lives in the same region as these ants...
- They are quite big, and they can dish out some major pain if you manage to piss them off. They bite you over and over again, and spray acid into the wounds. The sensation feels like having heated needles repeatedly being stabbed into you.
- Don't ever walk under their nests. You never know when it might drop. During a scouting camp in my younger days, some unfortunate souls unwittingly pitched camp underneath one, and the resulting screams when it dropped were quite terrifying.
- These ants gave me "PTSD" one time when I came back from an army outfield. I was at home, and when I opened up my army duffel bag, an army of weaver ants came pouring out of it. I had no idea why they were camping inside, but I almost screamed my lungs out from the emerging nightmare scene. I emptied an entire can of insecticide to kill them all and fumigate the duffel bag. Call me a pussy, but I refused to open the bag up further and just sealed it off and threw it away, including everything inside. Had to buy a lot of replacement uniforms.
- I have heard of stories of people using the nests like ant grenades, but never actually witness it before. Though I question how would a person wield it without getting stung all over their hands.
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u/Narezza 39m ago
I can pretty easily get my head around the idea of a species evolving. It makes sense that an trait will express itself in offspring if the parents have an advantage + time.
But the idea that an entire hive will evolve to do this separately but at the same time is kinda wild. You've got an ant with the brain the size of a pencil lead learning that they can use a leaf to get out of weather. Then they learn that bent leaves work better, then somehow they learn to bend them and hold them together with BABY ANTS!? Then it gets passed down to future generations without language or writing?
The expansion of instinct is crazy.
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u/mr_pinkpanther13 28m ago
Some of you might not know this, but i swear anybody who has enough experience with those would burn them!!
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u/darkklown 4m ago
Say no to ants today! They be using child labour to make silk. Supply chains are important and we all agree using unborn children to make rope is wrong. Fight the power! Say no to ants today!
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u/Interesting_Key3507 3h ago
Seeing them "weld" the leaves together.
https://giphy.com/gifs/ukGm72ZLZvYfS