Show A at ant t odd oddities g 4 T t 0 T A 1 i J 4 Z A A fight to the finish between red and black ants prepared by the national q society D C Q wal W IJU service INN humans there are arc all kinds hinds L of ants busy ants and ants that live on oil the accomplishments of others one often feels sorry for some of 0 the industrious species of formica solid citizens but really the forgotten ants because they seem to ho preyed upon by every sort of warrior ant and their nests are nearly always shared with various guests and parasites two kinds hinds of ants very different from each other sometimes live together amicably ench each occupying a a separate part of the same nest and contributing to the general welfare the little shampoo ant Lepto thorax emersons emerso erner nl discovered by dr william morton wheeler of harvard in the pent peat bogs of connecticut lives in the nests of Myri marinica nica a much larger species when the Lepto thorax worker needs food it approaches the Myr nilca nilea worker anil and proceeds to shampoo and lick ick it the obviously enjoys if this 1 Is for it r regurgitates e ur food to the Lepto thorax one day in brazil a scientist was investigating lestig vesti gating in an ant nest consisting or of a mass ot of earth six inches in diameter in a fork of a tree topped tapped this nest gently with his forceps tind and the surface was immediately covered with small reddish brown tints anta of ohp when begrin be grin PI into the lip epst to lind find the various forms a swarm of rushed out and one of them stung him miletus wis was q dozen times as Ms big as the lie and provided with strong lilting hitting jaws and a red hot still sting undoubtedly the little had built the nest and the odona had taken up their abode there also evidently a small alighting on such a nest would attract only the smaller inhabitants hut but a severe jolt would bring out the shock troops droops in de defense rense both of these ants were new to science and never have been found again finding a rare ant often ant hunters get as big a thrill from a successful search for a rare ant as a big game hunter from the capture of giraffes or elephants there Is about as ranch much physical exertion involved too turning over thousands of stones and logs ings dig digging g ing into tile airth clin chopping liping hard wood and peeling bark from innumerable dead trees luck infrequently plays an important part in 1001 fattier father schmitt a jesuit missionary sent to the gr great cat myrin ecologist forel of switzerland a single specimen of a new and extraordinary tra tm ant from haiti lialis forel described it and named the genus arter after ills his good friend carol emery of Dolo gral and the species arter after tile the jesuit Enier yella sch mitti this lone specimen was long iong the only representative of its kind in collections in haiti at the end of a months month s work a student found one solitary worker along a roadside ile ie hid find no fine tooth comb ft fth him film but for two months lie he tried every other method he be knew of to discover the nest of more of the workers finally he reported to his teacher in zoology that as far as he could make out ah the species was now extinct and he be had bad captured the last survivor on the island then one evening he went for a stroll just before dinner and noticed on the path a millipede or thou logger leger movin moving in an unnatural way bending over lie he saw that ahe he milli pede wits was dead and was bring being carried by an ant the ant wax was it took all of ills his strength of char cha r acter to keep keel from seizing both ant an and prey irey at once but lie smoked lifts pipe as calmly as he could find and watched wat clied the ant nil 1111 it leisurely en entered a small hole bole at one side of a 1111 stone glone when the stone was turned over t there ere was an eutlee colony of sixty workers later in the game anie locality lie he found a similar colony anti anil specimens spec lillens of these have now been distributed tri buted to all the important ant collections in museums all over the world no female of the species specie there were no females in ID either neat so it Is not improbable that tills this species lacks a special female and that thai one of the workers functions as all so an egg BIS layer at night there came to light in the students dents quarters a reddish ant which from froin its general character was assur assumed ned to be the male of 0 the species ile he had talked about Emer yella Beh so fo much that it became well known to the scant white population of the island under the name of ilary alia schmitt and when he finally reported its discovery there here was a great celebration among ills his fellow americans railroad men vacationing at port au prince another missionary priest pere salle had sent to the museum in paris from haiti a curious nest of vegetable fiber not unlike a wasps nest A scientist while rummaging about strong among tile specimens found it and tapped it on a piece of white paper several dead and dried ants dropped out they belonged to the senis Macro mischa the file most exquisitely formed of the ants and with beautiful belluti metallic coloration purples greens anil and reds tile the genus Is interesting es too because it alone aliw of the ants of the west indies has hag developed into numerous species about thirty are known from cuba alone at the mina carlota in tile the sierra de trinidad of 0 cuba an ant hunter attempted to turn over a large rock to 0 o see what was living underneath the rock split spilt in the middle and there in the very center was a halt half teaspoon ten spoon green metallic ants glisten ing in the sunshine they proved to be an unknown species of nr this genus fire ant Is a stinger the fire ant geml nata Is such a good traveler that one va biety or another Is found through oil the w warmer irmer parts of the earth earth il 11 gets its name from tile the painful burn ing in sting it can indict liet A colony c con 0 11 kalns vast numbers of workers them ali have hare recently been reported as colna great damage to young quill td ln tho southeastern states the birds incapable of de defending rending themselves are stung to death fire ants nest in almost any kind of locality and are extremely prolific kven floods cannot daunt tile fire ant for it has bag been reported in brazil thi ilia when the lie water rises and washes vot nit a colony the ants forni form a ball anil and brood in the middle and this living ball floats away to a tree or to higher ground tile the tailor ant am dina sad and a few other tints ceils are arc unique among all the earths creatures so fur far as Is 19 known in thil thi they use their oung as tools in ne nes s construction few adult insects spin silk but bill the larvae of many have this ability to enclose themselves in silken coc cocoon ilow from which they will later emerge af rutty fully formed adults utilize this accomplishment of its young in making its nests scientists have orten often torn tarn one of the leaves that form its box shaped nest and then watched the proceedings at first there Is a wild sortie on the part of the ants all in it fighting inami they cannot sting but bill they fille bile annoy angly after they have given up trying to lind find and destroy the intruder worker ants seize larvae in their mandibles and bring them to the damaged portions other workers sele seize the edges of the leaves and pull them thell together while those with the larvae pass them back and forth tile the grub to exude silk which sticks and the he pieces of the leaves together after their silk has been used for tile the common good tile lie luckless larvae have to sleep naked the tailor ant lives throughout the old world tropics 11 and nd Is one of the few ants acts that flint are greenish in color though some gome of its varieties are red and one I 1 in west africa Is brown almost to black in ID the american tropics legionary ants are encountered on every walk in the woods yet the discovery of one of 0 their queens Is an entomological event the female Is wingless an ungainly creature blind like the workers her abdomen greatly enlarged the one duty of the queen Is to lay eggs and tills this she does almost continually the file colony increasing in number and in strength she may nave have a long life for there Is one record of a queen confined in a glass observation besl aest who had bad survived for 17 years |