Ants can be freeloaders too


	Ants can be freeloaders too

saan-kpa

5-11-2009 10:46 PM

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tags:

ants, paint, dornhaus, work, labor

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/bfa65621-c54f-450d-9131-075803ea4408/12A536D7-C27A-457D-94C0-F6848B5D07F4/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#" style="font-size: 11px;">www.nytimes.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">To understand what is really going on in a colony of ants or bees, Dr. Dornhaus, an assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the <A title="More articles about the University of Arizona." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_arizona/index.html?inline=nyt-org">University of Arizona</A>,  tracks the little creatures individually  —  hence the paint and the numbers.</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#"><div align="center"><img src="http://content8.clipmarks.com/blog_cache/www.nytimes.com/img/5A8AAC4C-1544-4A3E-AA38-577678CB4D02" alt="" /></div></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">studies of whether the efficiency of ant society, based on a division of labor among ant specialists, is important to their success</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">briefly anesthetized 1,200 ants, one by one, and painted them using a single wire-size brush, with model airplane paint</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">two video cameras aiming down on an insect-size stage, she analyzed 300 hours of videotape of the ants in action</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">behavior more worthy of Aesop’s grasshopper than the proverbial industrious ants</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">fast ants took one to five minutes to perform a task</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">slow ants took more than an hour, and sometimes two</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">about 50 percent of the other ants do not do any work at all</blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/science/28prof.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1#">small colonies may sometimes rely on a single hyperactive overachiever</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/12A536D7-C27A-457D-94C0-F6848B5D07F4/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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