Sneak Peek: Honeypot Ants Turn Their Biggest Sisters into Jugs of Nectar (Patreon)

Honeypot Ants Turn Their Biggest Sisters into Jugs of Nectar | Deep Look

Deep in their underground nests, honeypot ants stuff members of their own colony until they look like golden water balloons. Drop by drop, worker ants deliver nectar and other liquid food into their largest sisters’ mouths. When food is scarce in the desert, the colony will feed from these living storage tanks, known as repletes. Hey Deep Peeps! If you love Ants, here is our I LOVE ANTS PLAYLIST: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fguo3HvWjb0&list=PLdKlciEDdCQD2UprWUYAiN3AzJ-RtEqv1 DEEP LOOK is a ultra-HD (4K) short video series created by KQED San Francisco and presented by PBS Digital Studios. See the unseen at the very edge of our visible world. Explore big scientific mysteries by going incredibly small. --- How do honeypot ant workers turn their sisters into repletes? First, they choose the biggest newborns. Then they need food to fill them up. The species of honeypot ant featured in our video, Myrmecocystus mexicanus, forages at night in the Southwest and Mexico. Workers venture out of their nest at dusk and collect nectar from plants, as well as other sweet liquids they slurp from the backsides of tiny animals like aphids. And they gather dead insects, such as other ants. Some of the fat and protein they extract from the insects will end up inside the repletes. Workers carry the nectar and other liquids back to the nest inside their own abdomens. Then they transfer it, mouth to mouth, to the ants they’re turning into repletes. The liquid flows into a pouch in the replete’s abdomen called the crop. This is the part of the ant that swells into a storage tank. The nutritious liquid stays inside the crop because four valves prevent most of it from flowing into the ant’s stomach, where it would be digested. --- Where are honeypot ants found? Honeypot ants – also known as honey ants – are found in arid regions of North America, Australia and Africa. --- Are honey ants edible? Yes. People eat them in Mexico, where they’re called hormigas mieleras, and in Australia. --- What do honey ants taste like when you eat them? One way to eat a replete is to hold it by the torso and bite off its abdomen so that it pops open inside your mouth. “In my opinion, they taste like molasses,” says entomologist John Conway, who has studied Myrmecocystus mexicanus honeypot ants in Colorado. When they’re about to be eaten, the ants squirt out a bit of formic acid as a defense mechanism. The acid can cause a very light burning sensation, says Deep Look producer Gabriela Quirós, who was filmed eating a replete for this episode. --- Why do honeypot ants hang from the ceiling? Conway says the air circulating around repletes as they hang from the top of the nest might help them avoid fungal infections. That said, repletes can move around and they sometimes crawl on the floor of the nest. ---+ Find a transcript on KQED Science: https://www.kqed.org/science/1978892/honeypot-ants-turn-their-biggest-sisters-into-jugs-of-nectar ---+ More Great Deep Look episodes: Kidnapper Ants Steal Other Ants’ Babies – and Brainwash Them https://youtu.be/sC4MjPKf3jY Where Are the Ants Carrying All Those Leaves? https://youtu.be/-6oKJ5FGk24 The Double-Crossing Ants to Whom Friendship Means Nothing https://youtu.be/fguo3HvWjb0 ---+ Shoutout! 🏆Congratulations🏆 to Kamea Webster on our Deep Look Community Tab for correctly answering our GIF challenge! https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxCcPd-_Lye-iHU31-fkTCrA1a7nUUnZSL ---+ Thank you to our Top Patreon Supporters ($10+ per month)! Jessica Chris B Emrick Burt Humburg David Deshpande Karen Reynolds Allison & Maka Masuda Daisuke Goto Adam Kurtz Wild Turkey Tianxing Wang Companion Cube Josh Kuroda Mark Jobes Blanca Vides Supernovabetty Kevin Judge Jana Brenning Anastasia Grinkevic Roberta K Wright monoirre Titania Juang Aurora KW Syniurge El Samuels Carrie Mukaida Jellyman Scott Faunce Cristen Rasmussen Kristy Freeman Nicky O. rafael pirondi Mehdi Cindy McGill Kelly Hong SueEllen McCann Noreen Herrington Sonia Tanlimco Laurel Przybylski Caitlin McDonough Misia Clive Nicolette Ray Louis O'Neill 吳怡彰 Shelley Pearson Cranshaw Levi Cai Jeremiah Sullivan Delphine Tseng kenneth nguyen ! Shonara Rivas Joshua Murallon Robertson Silvan TierZoo Elizabeth Ann Ditz Wade Tregaskis ---+ Follow KQED Science and Deep Look: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kqedscience/ Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/kqedscience ---+ About KQED KQED, an NPR and PBS affiliate in San Francisco, CA, serves Northern California and beyond with a public-supported alternative to commercial TV, radio and web media. Funding for Deep Look is provided in part by PBS Digital Studios. Deep Look is a project of KQED Science, the largest science and environment reporting unit in California. KQED Science is supported by the Dirk and Charlene Kabcenell Foundation, Campaign 21 and the members of KQED. #honeypotants #honeyants #deeplook