The following story is popular on the Internet: supposedly a female of these ants, too huge to move independently, and enclosed in a box from the other substance, in case of danger can literally teleport himself and his fellow tribesmen to a safe place. And supposedly such her ability is even confirmed experimentally. We decided to check what the science is known about such an amazing ability of Antta ants.
They write about teleporting ants Bloggers, Users literary services, entertainment sites, detailed articles are dedicated to Atta sites with collections of interesting facts. A significant part of publications, both confirming the ability of ants to teleportation, and refuting It refers to an article entitled "American ants who can teleport", published in the journal Geofocus in the November issue of 2005. The magazine itself is not available online, but users retell the text of the article, which states that the giant uterus of these ants supposedly lives in a special concrete cocoon, from which it cannot get out, and the scientists seemed to record the inexplicable disappearance of the uterine from the cocoon and its appearance in another cocoon, which is at a distance.
Ants, also Famous Like leaf Russian ants, the Muravyov clan, which includes 39 species and lives mainly in the tropics of the New World. Atta cut 12-17% of the entire foliage of tropical forests. On the one hand, this inflicts significant damage to pastures, on the other hand, stimulates the growth of new shoots in plants. Ants of Atta are one of the few animals leading agricultural activities. They take part of the cut plants underground, where they feed them Basidiomycota mushrooms, which, in turn, become the main food for the larvae of ants and additional - for adults. Adults are characterized by division into castes: workers (including gardeners), soldiers, guards, queens. Queen puts off A striking number of eggs: about 20 per minute, that is, 28 800 per day, or more than 10.5 million per year. Workers, soldiers and guards are sterile.
Once a year in a mature colony Appear Winged males and females capable of reproductions. Females placed a piece of mushroom in an infrabuccal pocket - a special cavity under the esophagus, then adult individuals fly out of the mother colony. Each female fertilizes up to ten males. This allows, firstly, to increase the genetic diversity inside the future colony, and secondly, it provides the female with a sufficient amount of sperm for life. After mating, the males die, and the females begin to create a new colony - they dig a nesting chamber in the soil and spit out a fungus from the infrabuccal pocket. The wings are gradually atrophy, supplying the female with nutrients. The female feeds the mushroom with the first eggs, and part eats part itself. The mushroom also receives food from its fecal liquid. After the mushroom begins to grow, some of the eggs receive a chance of development. The resulting larvae also feeds eggs. When the first offspring grows up, it takes on the responsibilities of caring for a mushroom and a female. Sterile workers can lay trophic eggs - they also go to the queen, fungus and larvae. The colony becomes stable, and the female until the end of her life plays the role of a machine to lay eggs.
Although a mature female Reaches 20 mm in length, and working individuals are only 4 mm, it is unlikely that such a ratio can be called a monstrous size that is mentioned in a viral history. Moreover, there is also no ultra -resistant camera (“so strong that it can only be destroyed by heavy crowbar”) does not exist in Atta. All tunnes and cameras dug In the ground, the maximum that is used to create a strong structure primarily ventilation mines is clay and sand. The following description from the viral history does not coincide with reality: “These cameras reach the size of coconut” and “This large insect occupies the whole camera.” Length average coconut - 35–40 cm, and queens - only 2 cm. In 2013, scientists from the Maryland Center of Systematic Entomology Studied The structure of the four colonies of Atta. The cameras in which the queens were located turned out to be quite modest in size - no more than 10 cm, besides the female, there was still a mushroom, workers and growing winged males and females. Scientists found any materials similar in terms of strength to cement. At the same time, describing their actions, on the contrary, they emphasized how painstaking work was, since any careless movement would have entailed the destruction of cameras and tunnels.
In any scientific bases of publications (Pubmed, Google Scholar), as well as in the largest scientific journals (Nature, Science) There are no references to teleportation among Antt ants. However, by keywords you can Find outWhat the British naturalist Aivven Sanderson reported in 1938 about teleportation Atta. Having received the degree of bachelor of zoology, and then the master of botany and geology, Sanderson was carried away by cryptozoology - a pseudo -nausea that examines animal unknown science. Cryptozoologists themselves They think His father of this direction claims that it was Sanderson - the author of the name. In his book "Creatures" just tells The whole story with teleportation, which formed the basis of the viral post. There are such details as “a camera size with a coconut”, “a strong camera that can only be destroyed by scrap”, “a giant uterus that occupies the entire camera”, as well as all the details with the coloring of the queen, the closure of the chamber and the detection of the same marked uterus at a distance from the destroyed chamber. In addition to teleportation, Sanderson writes about telepathy in the same chapter:
“There are several hypotheses. One of them comes down to electromagnetic signals - but keep in mind, the Russians seem to prove that the person’s telepathic signals do not fall into the electromagnetic spectrum. They placed the subjects susceptible to hypnosis in special devices that were shielded from electromagnetic waves, and found that telepathic connection was not interrupted. ”
In addition to the ants, Atta Sanderson describes meetings with Maricoxy (monkey-lumps), a tunijuk (an Eskimos snowy man), flying saucers, independently flying stones and a lokh-Nesky monster. Moreover, Sanderson sincerely believed in everything that he described. In the epilogue, he notes:
“The“ things ”that I told you about are existed in any of the famous categories of“ things ”at all fit! All of them are real, physical, concrete and really existing things that can be weighed, or measured, or to do both in one or another scientific way. ”
It is impossible to reliably find out what exactly Sanderson saw in the case of Antt ants, since he does not indicate the names of those who were with him on the expedition, the year of the expedition, the exact place of observation, and even the specific type of Atta (and 39 are known). However, it can be said exactly that the described by many signs does not coincide with how the Atta colony operates in reality.
Thus, a widely replicated story that Anth ants can be teleported is nothing more than a retelling of the history of a cryptozoologist of the middle of the last century. In his story, Sanderson makes many factual errors in the description of the life of an ant colony, and also does not indicate a view that he and his assistants watched, nor the place where he carried out his observations. It is impossible to find out what he did and saw, but no one except him noted any teleportation from Att.
Image on the cover: Charles J. Sharp, CC by-SA 4.0Via Wikimedia Commons
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