Ants Talk to Each Other
Advances in audio technology have enabled scientists to discover that ants routinely talk to each other in their nests.
According to Times online, most ants have a natural washboard and plectrum built into their abdomens that they can rub together to communicate using sound. Using miniaturized microphones and speakers that can be inserted unobtrusively into nests; researchers established that the queens can issue instructions to their workers.
The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants ‘speaking’, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves.
Rebel’s large blue butterfly is one of about 10,000 creatures that have a parasitic relationship with ants and has now been found to have learnt to imitate the sounds as well as using chemical signals.
The butterfly’s caterpillars are carried by ants into the nests where they beg for food and are fed by the workers. When a colony is disturbed, the ants will rescue the caterpillars before their own broods. Research several decades ago had shown that ants were able to make alarm calls using sounds, but only now has it been shown that their vocabulary may be much bigger and that they can ‘talk’ to each other.
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