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Leaf-cutter ants have rocky crystal armor, never before seen in insects
- mytailorisrich 6y agoCorrect link: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/11/leaf-cutter-ants-have-strong-mineral-armor/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2020/11/leaf-cutt...
- anonytrary 6y agoWhy is this comment not higher up? The current link returns a JSON response: {"message": "Adapter not found"} Dang can update the link?
- dang 6y agoChanged from https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/animals/2020/11/leaf-cutter-ants-have-strong-mineral-armor https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/anima.... Thanks!
- anonytrary 6y agoThanks for all of your hard work dang! Happy Thanksgiving.
- hownottowrite 6y agohttps://archive.is/vZeQP https://archive.is/vZeQP
- colordrops 6y agoWow, archive.is is aborting on non-standard user agents. What a horrible practice.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoWhat user agent is it aborting on? That is disappointing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cookiengineer 6y ago...and it blocks TOR requests with a legitimate web browser (Firefox on Android) with unsolvable captchas. Thanks, cloudflare. Thanks.
- zrkrlc 6y agoI like how their experiment was literally pitting ants against each other.
- _Microft 6y agoI can't help empathizing with animals in such a situation. It must be like getting teleported into an otherwise empty room with a tiger in it. (Turns out that humans with chainmail fare a lot better than those without!)
- emerged 6y agoAnts individually are just happy to be of service to the queen. They should put a picture of the queen nearby as motivation.
- Razengan 6y agoPheromones of the queen you mean.
- CompuHacker 6y agoWe'll make it scratch and sniff.
- MaximumYComb 6y agoEven wearing chain mail I doubt you'd have a chance much higher than zero against a full grown tiger.
- bigbubba 6y agoI think the tiger would easily crush your neck, even if their teeth couldn't pierce the mail. I'd give better odds to a knight wearing a lot of plate armor. Still not very good odds though.
- inawarminister 6y ago
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y agoSome fig wasps have zinc plated ovipositors. https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a12957/found-the-first-metal-plated-syringe-in-a-living-creature-16838120/ https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a12957/foun...
- corey_moncure 6y agoAnd some blood worms have copper fangs!
- xipho 6y agoAnd various other wasps have heavy metals concentrated near the apex of their mandibles. There's also resilin, an elastic-like compound(?) that concentrates energy at certain parts of insect joins, used during jumping, or other fast movements.
- suifbwish 6y agoKnowing that it is possible to have these genetic traits makes me feel that humans are even more delicate than first thought.
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- xeeeeeeeeeeenu 6y agoAnother interesting animal, an iron snail: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-foot_snail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaly-foot_snail
- suifbwish 6y agoWow that’s one of the coolest things I never learned about until now
- anamexis 6y agoIsn't it the only thing you've never learned about until now?
- chordalkeyboard 6y agono, now its the only thing he learned about until then.
- waheoo 6y agoThreads like this cause the matrix to coredump.
- mensetmanusman 6y agoThere is only one kairos
- Cactus2018 6y agoReminds me of the episode of "Primitive Technology" where he turns terrestrial snail shells into lime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek3aeUhHaFY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek3aeUhHaFY
- ORioN63 6y agoI don't think I've ever came across them before, but not even 20 minutes ago I was just checking out the deep mining wikipedia page that also mentions the same snails.
- nullsense 6y agoI just got this when I tried to hit the page: {"message": "Adapter not found"}
- sammalloy 6y ago> never before seen in insects Is this surprising, considering that an estimated 86% of species on Earth and 91% of ocean species remain unidentified? https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001127 https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...
- crankyoldcrank 6y agoIt's still a completely new thing. something can be surprising just because it's undiscovered previously, despite our knowledge that there's more out there to be discovered
- tooltower 6y agoIt can be fascinating without being surprising. That argument can be used to downplay any new finding in a poorly explored field.
- ghayes 6y agoI'd also argue that it _is_ surprising, as we'd expect the majority of unknown species to be similar to known species. It's not like every unknown species is just randomly created-- most will have ancestors that are well known and studied.
- learnstats2 6y agoConsidering that leaf-cutter ants are well-known to humans (I've seen them in a museum in Amsterdam), I'd say it is surprising that we haven't noticed this before.
- trianglem 6y agoI spent this summer learning about the different mushroom in my area in as much depth as possible and it is incredible how little we know about most of them besides a name and very apparent superficial features.
- Talanes 6y ago
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tyingq 6y agoI wonder if these ants are immune to the effects of diatomaceous earth. Supposedly, DE pokes holes in the waxy coating over their exoskeleton and the ants die of the resulting dehydration.
- colochef 6y agoPersonal experience, the diatomaceous earth does nothing, it barely scares them off. Also research: https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-economic-entomology/volume-108/issue-3/tov066/Does-Diatomaceous-Earth-Control-Leaf-Cutter-Ants-Hymenoptera--Formicidae/10.1093/jee/tov066.short https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-economic-entomology/v...
- 29athrowaway 6y agoA mantis shrimp hits as hard as a 22 caliber bullet and can break reinforced glass. The hit of a mantis shrimp generates cavitation sonoluminiscence upon impact. The pistol shrimp also uses cavitation sonoluminiscence. Its claw creates a bubble that upon collapse reaches 7,700 °C (2,200 °C hotter than the sun). Researchers created a larger, 3d printed version of the claw that creates the same effect. https://tees.tamu.edu/news/2019/04/shrimp-claw-inspires-new-method-of-underwater-plasma-generation.html https://tees.tamu.edu/news/2019/04/shrimp-claw-inspires-new-... And video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOdRRjskWcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOdRRjskWcc
- andai 6y agoThe article describes the microscopic plating but doesn't show it. Here's a picture! http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge8/image_9093_2e-Acromyrmex-echinatior.jpg http://cdn.sci-news.com/images/enlarge8/image_9093_2e-Acromy... Source: http://www.sci-news.com/biology/acromyrmex-echinatior-biomineral-armor-09093.html http://www.sci-news.com/biology/acromyrmex-echinatior-biomin...
- agumonkey 6y agonature should have filed a patent on nanotechnology
- ssener2001 6y agoAll to belong to Allah(God) .
- andrei_says_ 6y agoNature seems to be trying, using, iterating and reusing all over the place, walled gardens be damned.
- ende 6y agoJust wait until they dig deep enough to craft iron and diamond armor.
- poisonarena 6y agoreddit comment