Comment on We keep the entomologists in the basement.

scytale@piefed.zip ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

• ryedaft@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  There’s a species of ant that lays eggs of a different species of ant.

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  • panda_abyss@lemmy.ca ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    What the fuck?

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    • Dani551@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      Valid reaction

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      • spankinspinach@sh.itjust.works ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I admire this guy’s dropping an ant fact like this and then refusing to elaborate

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  • Dani551@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I need more information

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    • AlchemicalAgent@mander.xyz ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I think they’re referring to this species. Although the cloning aspect adds yet another layer of wtf on top. Ant queen lays eggs that hatch into two species

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    • juliebean@lemmy.zip ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messor_ibericus

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• PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Some species of termite can effectively molt backwards, meaning they can physically return their bodies to a juvenile stage, AND THEN re-mature from that juvenile stage into a different adult body plan!

  So adult worker (medium sized head and mandibles, etc.) -> juvenile morphology -> adult soldier (huge head and mandibles). And other forms I don’t remember, think they can go back and then become something with wings, etc. - big bug changes!

  And what’s crazier is this is done in response to pheromones secreted by the mound’s queen. Termite Queen up in the mound playing Sid Meier’s Civ lol, controlling her city through different stinks! Too few soldiers after the latest bird incursion? Got a buncha workers with nothing to do? No problem, stink-compel em to go back to goo and come back as what the mound needs!

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  I got all this from a fairly goofy podcast a buncha years ago - be kind, anonymous grumpy expert, if this is way wrong lol

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• fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Some aphids are born pregnant.

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• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  Somewhere in Poland, there is an ex-Soviet nuclear bunker which was sealed off for radiation. There was a ventilation pipe in which ants would fall down and then become cannibals.

  The queen-less colony of worker drowns was about a million strong.

  In 2016, they did an experiment, where they installed a wooden board to let them back out to see what would happen.

  (I can only assume they did not watch enough trashy c-tier horror flicks, or any kaiju monster flicks, because this is how the world ends. )

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