More Ants!

Yes, that’s right. I don’t deny how geeky it is to link to more ant stuff, but here goes.

1. Scientists figure that ants sort of count how many steps they’ve taken, in order to get their way back to the nest.

To test his hypothesis, scientists did a little test. They let the ants head out and forage around a bit. Then they attached stilts to the ants legs. If they were counting their steps, then having longer legs would make them overshoot their nest on the way home. (link)

Which they did.

2. Scientists have collected the first live sample of “Dracula Ants,” which they think shows how ants evolved from wasps. Also, cool name, huh? (link)

[I stole both of these links from the same blog post at Elyce Elucidates.]