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When an ant dies , its nestmates quickly mob it off . That way , the danger to the dependency of contagion is trim back .
But how do they know its dead ?
Fire ants move a pupa.
Theory has view as that dead pismire release chemicals created by decomposition ( such as butterball acids ) that signal their death to the settlement ’s living ants .
But now entomologists working on Argentine pismire — evil fightersthat are highly territorial — provide evidence for a different chemical mechanism for what ’s behind necrophoresis , or the removal of dead nestmates from colonies .
All ants , both live on and dead , have the " end chemicals " continually , but live ant have them along with other chemicals associated with lifetime — the " life chemicals . " When an ant dies , its lifetime chemical dissipate or are degraded , and only the death chemicals remain .
" It ’s because the deadened emmet no longer smells like a living pismire that it gets hold to the graveyard , not because its body liberate new , singular chemical substance after death , " said study team member Dong - Hwan Choe , a graduate educatee at University of California , Riverside .
The finding is detail online this week in the other version of theProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences .
" Understanding the precise mechanism of ant necrophoresis will help oneself researchers break a more environmentally friendly pest direction strategy by which we can achieve results with smaller sum of money of insect powder , " Choe said . " A late study on Argentine ants that we did in the lab signal that nestmates can efficiently distribute behind - acting and non - repellent insecticides among themselves via necrophoresis . When an ant exposed to an insecticide dies in the nest , other emmet convey its consistence around , with the insecticide transfer easy from the cadaver to healthy ants . "
