Lennart Tange viaWikimedia Commons//CC By 2.0
We might write bugs off as mute , foul little animal , but societal insects that endure in large groups have come up with plenty of ways to keep their home clean and healthful . While ant nests and bee nettle rash do n’t have anything as impressive as indoor bathymetry and trash compactors , the brute have their own ways of managing dissipation . Honey bees , for example , go on “ defecation flights ” to deposit their fecal matter far from the beehive . Many ant species make refuse piles called “ kitchen middens ” outside their nests for dump bodily wastefulness , scrap , and the bodies of drained nestmates . Some ants even have specialize groups of sanitation workers that care with these piles . termite go even further and put their feces to body of work , using it as ramp up material .
Now German researcher have uncovered another manner that insects deal with their poo . For the first metre , they ’ve found that one mintage of ant maintains underground “ can ” in its nests .
Tomer Czaczkes , a life scientist at Germany ’s University of Regensburg , has been working with ants for years , studying their behavior and decision as individual and colonies , and keep several white plaster nest of disastrous garden ants ( Lasiusniger ) in his lab for experiments . Over clip , henoticedthat decided dark patches always spring in some bedchamber in the corner of these nest . He suspected that these might be piles of fecal matter — or , in the parlance of ant researcher , frass — and to make certain , he did a little experiment .
One Poo, Two Poo, Red Poo, Blue Poo
Working with Jürgen Heinze and Joachim Ruther , Czaczkes begin feeding pismire in 21 dissimilar nests a sugar solution colour with solid food dye . Some nests got a red answer and others got blue . Then , as the ants went about their occupation and did their commercial enterprise , the scientist determine and waited . After two months , every nest had two to four dark spell in its corners , each the same color as the dye the ants in the nest had been eat . The ants were indeed exempt themselves in specific patch . On closer review , the research worker saw that the patches never contain uneaten food , corpses , or other waste product , which were coldcock outside the nest by all the settlement . The indoor piles were rigorously for frass , and the researchers say in their newpaperthat they “ thus feel justified in terming these plot of land ‘ lavatory . ’ ”
Why , Czaczkes then wondered , would the ants discommode give peculiar chambers as toilets when other insects go to great lengths to get their wastefulness out of their homes ? Even these pismire took their non - frass waste outside . While the toilets were always gather aside in the corners of the nests , the ants did n’t avoid these Sir William Chambers and see them repeatedly , so cleanliness and pathogens that might be in the feces did n’t appear to be a concern . And having a kitchen eitchen midden outside of the nest incoming seems to prevail out the notion that the ants do n’t require to take the bother of stool a special misstep to get free of waste or lead anything that might attract predators .
