Uncle Milton Passes Away but not Before the Ant-Farm goes into Space

"That's something I'd never do. I'd never step on an ant. Put three of my kids through college."

That quote from Milton Levine, co-creator with his brother-in-law, of the class ant-farm, was taken from an interview with NPR radio. Milton died last week, at the age of 97, in California.

Milton came up with the idea for the ant-farm after watching some pavement ants one day. he brought the classic ant-farm to the market in 1956 and, over the years, has sold over 20 million.

You can still buy the classic Uncle Milton Ant-Farm, as shown above, at a number of on-line retailers. In recent years, however, another design has become more popular. These are an illuminated farm in which the soil/sand has been replaced with a florescent gel. The gel apparently, isn't just a digging medium, but contains some food and water for the ants. I'll have to buy one and try it out.

An ant-farm has even gone into space. A project designed by high school students from Syracuse, New York, sent 17 harvester ants into space on the shuttle Columbia in 2003. The purpose was to study how they tunnel in a micro-gravity environment. While their data was downloaded each day during the project, the ants would never return alive. They were lost when the Columbia disintegrated during re-entry on Feb 1, 2003.

I've always wondered why the choice of ants for these farms was almost always harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex spp.). Apparently their large size reduced the number of escapees, a characteristic some parents probably valued greatly. The problem with this species, however, is their painful sting. It is much worse than the southern fire ant (Solenopsis invicta).

Last night, I happened to catch the replay of an interview on CBC Radio from 1997, with the Canadian distributor for Uncle Milton ant-farms. He didn't seem as particular about the ant species and was offering 0.5 - 0.75 cents per ant to prospective ant-ranglers (I think his ad for ant-ranglers prompted the interview). Seems when people buy these farms they like them to come with ants. I don't know if the job still stands but it could be a fairly lucrative way to spend the summer.

Photo Credit: NPR Radio

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/26/133249612/Uncle-Milton-Ant-Farm-Co-Inventor-Dies-At-97

Borneo 9: A work day at Danum

The work day always begins at 8 am, whether it is a lab day or a field day. When working in the field we usually headed out to the same area and then all scatter off the trails and into the jungle proper. Typically we could collect until noon then head back to the Field Centre for lunch. Within 30 minutes of work most of us are completely soaked through with sweat.

It took awhile to get the right search image for ants in a tropical rainforest. While some are huge (e.g., Camponotus gigas (see below)), most are tiny, and are especially common in the leaf litter. Using litter extractors (mini-Winklers) yields an endless variety of ants. Interestingly, many of these ants are trap-jaw ants. For a picture of one common trapjaw ant (genus Strumigenys) in the leaf litter, click here. Still, ants could be found on the vines, leaves, tree trunks, and in woody debris. In the latter case you had to watch for scorpions when pulling apart the wood. No one was an expert on scorpions, but one of the first we encountered was recognized by a student from India as definitely something you did not want to touch.

The largest ant, possibly the largest in the world if you settle on one definition of 'large' was Camponotus gigas.

Shown above is a minor of Camponotus gigas which differs from the majors in two ways. First, the ant above is much smaller than a major, second, the minors are docile and not inclined to bite. The majors are aggressive and live to charge and bite. If your first encounter with this species is a minor, you have a surprise coming when you meet your first major. One student had a major clamped onto the skin between his thumb and forefinger which easily sliced through the skin.

After a morning of collecting it was back to the lab for the afternoon. We would begin to sort, pin and identify what we had collected. A morning in the field was easily 1-2 days of work in the lab.

Five 0'clock marked Happy Hour, which was mandatory for everyone. If you have been told you can't buy booze in Malaysia, you have been misinformed. This was followed by a lecture at 6 pm (always a fantastic presentation by some of the best biologists in the world). Supper was at 7 and then it was back to the lab for the rest of the night. I usually packed it in around 9:30- 10 pm but some students worked till the power was cut off at midnight.

Photo Credits: Me, except for the photo of me, taken by Phil Barden (American Museum of Natural History)

Going it Alone

Myrmica crassirugis is an interesting medium sized ant that is not too uncommon in the grasslands (Becher's Prairie) just west of Williams Lake. It was a fairly common capture in some work I did a few years ago and, following some additional collecting, seems to reside in Canada only in a few locations in British Columbia. The specimens I collected became one of just a few samples used to officially describe this species by Andre Francoeur at the University of Quebec a couple of years ago.

About the time that I was collecting this ant, I met a PhD student, Gunther Jansen, at a conference in Washington DC, who was working at the University of Helsinki. Gunther was working on the evolutionary history of the genus to which this ant belongs. Just this week, he has published his work, examining over 60 species, including some of my samples from Becher's Prairie. Of interest is the finding that Myrmica crassirugis is a bit of an oddball.

Whereas most other species within the genus cluster into what are known as species groups (aggregations of closely related species), Myrmica crassirugis is one of the few that seems to stand out on its own. In fact, from its DNA it can be estimated that this species evolved around 18 million years ago. For some reason this species has been an evolutionary loner and one is left to wonder why. It almost certainly evolved first in Asia although it isn't known there now so a tendency not to travel into new habitat isn't the answer.

The answer probably lies in the ecology of this species. The problem is, like most ants in temperate climates, we know almost nothing about this.

Photo credit: Me

Ant Robots

Robot technology seems to be leaping forward right now.  

Not sure when we will need to program in Asimov's three laws of robotics, but it won't be long.

Hat tip: Myrmecos blog

YouTube and Robot credit: Kåre Halvorsen (aka Xenta) from Norway

Worth Five Minutes

Remind me one day to discuss Ant Colony Optimization Algorithms

Hat Tip: Myrmecos blog

Source: Bentekr (Posted on YouTube May 18, 2008).  Check out Bentekr's other Miniscule postings such as the Fight for the Lollipop.

The Borg

Found throughout much of British Columbia is the slave-taking ant Polyergus breviceps.  

These ants attack the nests of other ant species--mostly members of what is known as the Formica fusca group, those medium sized black ants common pretty much everywhere.  They kill any ants defending the raided nest, then enter and carry away the larvae and pupae.  These are taken back to their own nest where they pupate into adults that will now work for their new colony.

As Polyergus ants convert members of other ant species to functional members of their own colony, perhaps they were the inspiration for The Borg of Star Trek infamy.  I know of no other group of animals, other than ants, that can do this.

Odd fact: almost all of the raids carried out by Polyergus ants occur between 3 and 6pm. 

Other specimens from the particular collection, of which, one member is shown here, are now in Missouri where Dr. James Trager is examining their DNA in an effort to revise the classification of Polyergus ants.

Photo credit: me

Ant rules for better highways

Anyone driving on a busy two lane highway knows how the traffic slows down whenever someone passes and other drivers must adjust their speed to accommodate this.  Leafcutter ants that form busy highways between their leaf source and the nest have figured out how to make everyone move with the greatest efficiency.  

One simple rule.  Do not pass.  It seems that dealing with a passing ant slows trail efficiency twice as much as simply following a slower ant.  

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/abstract/212/4/499

hat tip: Myrmecos blog.

Photo source: National Geographic:Roy Toft