Doorhead ant

If you enjoyed this article, please consider making a gift to help Ark In Space to continue to bring you fascinating features, photographs and videos. Thank you! The page cannot be found Possible causes: Baptist explanation: Doorhead ant must be sin in your life, doorhead ant. Everyone else opened it fine.

Species : ants from several genera, including Cephalotes and Carebara Habitat : trees in the tropical forest. Just wedge your head into the entryway of your home. Weird as it sounds, such traits have evolved again and again, in a specialised caste of species from at least eight ant genera — including two new species just discovered in Ivory Coast and Kenya. Only a single example of door head ant was discovered in Africa before this. That lone saucer-headed ant, picked out of leaf litter in Kenya, looked so different from its normal nest mates that it was wrongly assigned its own species.

Doorhead ant

Contents move to sidebar hide. Brandao et al. Wheeler , to describe a cryptic defensive technique employed by insects that use specially modified body structures to block nest entrances. Phragmotic-headed ants, for instance, prevent intruders from entering nests by blocking the entrances or by pushing them out of entrance galleries. Shield-like-headed soldiers and queens of the Neotropical myrmicine Cephalotes species of the pallens group appear to secrete a fibrous material from thousands of pores that resemble glandular openings, coating and eventually accumulating in a dense tangle of material over the head disk. This material is superficially similar to a mass of fungal filaments mycelia , but does not have the branching pattern or internal structure indicative of a fungal origin de Andrade and Baroni Urbani, In other ant genera, phragmotic structures develop through the accretion of environmental debris held by specialised hairs. Reversed phragmosis was described for the queen of Pheidole embolopyx , which has a peculiar posteriorly truncated gaster with a rear surface covered with unusual hookshaped hairs Brown, Fischer et al. Phragmosis is most strongly developed in the New World arboreal genus Cephalotes , where usually all castes queens, and major and minor workers have highly adapted shield-like head morphologies that enable them to plug their nest entrance without exposing eyes, antennae or mandibles to any would-be intruders.

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Ant colonies are broken into castes based on the size and sex of the individual ant. There are males that are only part of the colony for a short period of time, dying after mating. And there are workers, which can vary in size depending on their job. The biggest ants in the colony are the soldiers — the workers charged with defending the colony. But from species to species, not all soldiers make the best warriors. Just use your head.

When the Ant faints , it buffs the stats of one of its friends. The friend buffed is chosen at random, and the size of the buff increases with the Ant's level. The Ant's stats are mediocre, but its ability is incredible for a Tier 1 Pet. Not only does the Ant's good attack mean it can trade with most tier 1 pets, but its huge buff when fainting often allows one of its friends to get an extra KO, meaning the Ant usually trades 2-for However, this doesn't always pan out in practice. Firstly, if the Ant's buff hits a 1 health friend often another Ant , then that friend is unlikely to get an extra KO, wasting the Ant's ability. Secondly, the Ant is prone to getting sniped by the ability of the Mosquito or Iguana before it can attack, preventing it from trading. Thirdly, it can't trade with a Duck , Beetle or Seahorse.

Doorhead ant

Odontomachus brunneus is a species of ant in the subfamily Ponerinae , found in the southeastern United States , parts of Central America , and the West Indies. Ants of the genus Odontomachus are commonly called trap-jaw ants , due to the large, straight mandibles , which can be opened to degrees and snapped shut on prey. When sensory hairs on the inside of the mandibles are touched, the trap jaw is triggered. The mandibles also permit slow and fine movements for other tasks such as nest building and care of larvae. Foraging is often slow during the breeding period due to the amount of Odontomachus brunneus ants reproducing, but is doubled by the time the breeding period comes to an end. Trap-jaw ants of this species have the fastest moving predatory appendages within the animal kingdom. The peak force exerted was in the order of times the body weight of the ant. The ants were also observed to use their jaws as a catapult to eject intruders or fling themselves backwards to escape a threat. This Ponerinae -related article is a stub.

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PMID Tools Tools. Stay Connected. Within the Neotropical species, Blepharidatta conops , queens are characterized by shield-like heads, and appear to secrete fibrous material. The cephalic shields of two newly described species Carebara phragmotica and Carebara lilith were found to be covered by a layer of debris soil, maybe organic material; see Fig. Toggle limited content width. Intriguingly, they look much like the door head ants in the New World: ants from the tree-dwelling genus Cephalotes. They discovered Cephalotes pallens do in fact have encrusted material on their head disks. Psyche: A Journal of Entomology. When ants only live in one kind of hole, they can grow heads to fit it perfectly. They use their unique plate-like heads to block the entrances to the nests, essentially creating a living door to the nest cavities. Evolutionary Biology, 22, Wheeler and Holldobler investigated how Cepholates workers might collect or accumulate debri on their head disks. Bumblebees show each other how to solve complex puzzles.

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Myrmicinae - 6 genera, 13 species. They discovered Cephalotes pallens do in fact have encrusted material on their head disks. Genus of ants. Phragmotic major worker head. With such tunnels in short supply, invader ants and parasites find them attractive targets for raids, so the ants have to mount a defence. Cephalic shield of soldier. Parasites like phorid flies want to lay their eggs in the ants, while other ants merely want to steal the valuable real estate. This material is superficially similar to a mass of fungal filaments mycelia , but does not have the branching pattern or internal structure indicative of a fungal origin de Andrade and Baroni Urbani, More Read View source View history. Jump to content Navigation. Possible causes:. Just wedge your head into the entryway of your home. Life Stunning slo-mo videos show how insects survive raindrop collisions.