Month: September 2022

ANT-IDOTE. Fire ants attack tawny crazy ants with their venom which usually kills target insects. Tawny crazy ants respond by secreting formic acid to bathe themselves in. This is the antidote to the fire ant toxin, and forms an ionic liquid (liquid salts with very low meeting points) not before found in nature. https://lnkd.in/eHuSE6W View in LinkedIn

MAMMALIAN PROTEINS IN ARSENAL. "The poison of many stinging nettles contains formic acid, although scientists have discovered that other chemicals are also present. These probably contribute to the painful sting. The additional chemicals include acetylcholine, serotonin and histamine." https://lnkd.in/eR-p3J9 View in LinkedIn

COORDINATED ANT DEFENSE. "Many ants squirt formic acid in huge jets (up to a meter) in a coordinated fashion when threatened". An ant is about 10(-3) meters, so to spray 1 meter is 1/0.001 or 1,000 times their height. The Eiffel Tower is 301 meters high, and the average man 1.7 meters, so the ant spray is the equivalent of a human spraying to the top of 5.6 stacked Eiffel towers. Watch this video of ants in action by David Attenborough. https://lnkd.in/eBaemnV View in LinkedIn

HERBICIDE. "Here we show that the ant Myrmelachista schumanni, which nests in D. hirsuta stems, creates devil's gardens by poisoning all plants except its host plants with formic acid. By killing these other plants, M. schumanni provides its colonies with abundant nest sites — a long-lasting benefit as colonies can live for 800 years." https://lnkd.in/eXFetfk View in LinkedIn

FORMIC ACID FUNGICIDE. "In invasive garden ants, grooming of fungus-exposed brood is effective beyond the sheer mechanical removal of fungal conidiospores; it also includes chemical disinfection through the application of poison produced by the ants themselves. Formic acid is the main active component of the poison. It inhibits fungal growth of conidiospores remaining on the brood surface after grooming and also those collected in the mouth of the grooming ant." https://lnkd.in/ePYNRJu View in LinkedIn

POISON FROG SKIN'S chemicals come from their ant diet. "All of the alkaloids in frog and toad skin that appear to originate by sequestration from myrmicine ants contain unbranched carbon skeletons. Coccinellid beetles appear to be a dietary source for the coccinellines and some of the structurally related tricyclic alkaloids." https://lnkd.in/eiZkGrh View in LinkedIn

HOIST ON YOUR OWN PETARD. Anteaters "are not known for their aversion to ants, but if their prey had a sense of poetic justice, they might appreciate, as they are drawn into the anteater's stomach, that they will - literally - stew in their own juices. Thanks to the ants' formic acid, anteaters have no need to produce the hydrochloric acid many other mammals use to promote digestion - their food conveniently helps to digest itself." https://lnkd.in/eFTfaPq View in LinkedIn

ANTING BY BIRDS. "It's also likely that formic acid's biocidal properties make ant hills handy pit-stops for many species of bird. 'Anting', a behaviour in which birds are seen to squat and preen over ant nests, is thought by some to encourage the ants to release their formic acid, thus helping to control bird parasites." https://lnkd.in/eFTfaPq View in LinkedIn

ACID TEST. "A group of birds with an average of 732 feather mites spread their wings over a nest of Formica rufa ants. In twelve hours 253 mites were dead. An equal number of birds that were not allowed to ant were counted. There were an average of 758 mites in this group." https://lnkd.in/ezVJ9Rk View in LinkedIn

BEETLE FORMIC ACID. "The carabid beetle Galerita lecontei has a pair of abdominal defensive glands that secrete a mixture of formic acid, acetic acid, and lipophilic components...Formic acid, at the concentration of 80%, is the principal constituent. The beetle ejects the secretion as a spray, which it aims accurately toward parts of the body subjected to assault. At full capacity, the glands store 4.5 mg of formic acid (3% of body mass), enough for upward of six ejections." https://lnkd.in/eRxPvPM View in LinkedIn