Military aircraft rely on radio-based IFF systems to distinguish friends from foes. Ants use a chemical-based system, and now U.C. Irvine scientists are trying to start an ant civil war by playing with those scents:
Hoping to trigger an ant civil war, U.C. Irvine scientists are experimenting with a colorless potion that makes bosom-buddy arthropods try to decapitate one another, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.It could help rein in one of the planet’s most troublesome pests — the Argentine ant.
Throughout the state, the species has formed a massive super-colony that stretches from San Diego to Sonoma, wreaking havoc on wildlife, citrus crops and countless kitchens, according to The Times.
The glue that unites the ants is their scent, a hydrocarbon-laced secretion that coats their exoskeletons and enables the insects to identify one another as friends.
But biologist Neil Tsutsui and chemist Kenneth Shea recently created a synthetic version of the Californian ant scent, then tweaked the ingredients slightly and transferred the concoction onto ants serving as guinea pigs, The Times reported.
Like cheap cologne, the new scent offended nearly every other ant in the room. One whiff and they began tearing their suddenly strange-smelling comrades to shreds, according to The Times.
‘Our preliminary results strongly suggest that by manipulating chemicals on the exoskeleton, we can disrupt the cooperative behavior of these ants and, in essence, trigger civil unrest within these huge colonies,’ Shea said in remarks reported by The Times.
Addendum: If you’re not already familiar with UCI, there’s an amusing bit of trivia that makes this story even more amusing: UCI’s mascot is the anteater. (That’s what happens when the student body votes on the mascot in the middle of the 1960s.)