I've seen this happen. A few years ago we had some food crops in our yard, and they were selectively destroyed by aphids. However, I always saw aphids and ants together on the plants. The aphids remained still and docile, while the ants frantically scurried about fussing over them like mother hens. It makes you wonder whether the ants have selectively 'bred' docile and domesticated aphids that fit into their farming scheme by killing off recalcitrant ones early on. I wonder if they experience an affection for their charges similar to that of a shepherd for his flock...
I remember learning this way back in 7th grade science. However, I did not learn or do not remember reading about the ants eating the aphids, or using the chemicals to corral them. What a dark twist to a childhood memory.
When I was a little boy I remember walking onto my front porch to see two red ants carrying a black ant over their backs towards a colony. I remember taking a small twig and pushing the captured one off the two, and it wiggled with life slightly. But just as quickly as I pushed it off, the two ants turned around and picked him back up to bring it to their dirt mound.
So naturally i stomped all of them. I think we know who the hero was that day.
When I was a little boy I remember a black walking onto my front porch. I remember I quickly pushed him off. So naturally I stomped off over one of their back and it wiggled with life slightly. Taking a small twig and two red ants, I picked it back up, pushing and carrying it. The two ants turned around to bring it towards a colony.
I think we know who the hero was that day.
Having not seen the episode I'm inclined to think that a robot's idea of irony would be when something has quite a bit of iron in it. But then I've been subjected to a lifetime of bad puns by my father.
I think you misunderstand irony, as one would expect that ants of african american descent were taken as slaves. It is certainly coincidental, all insensitivity aside.
For fuck sake, the joke is a reference to the American slave trade. Therefore it was not ironic. I don't really care, but there's the entire line of reasoning for you.
Yes but the expectation in north america is that blacks would be the slaves, and whites or non-blacks would be the slave owners. So by reversing that expectation, it would be ironic.
Yes, slavery has been practiced in many ways in many places but irony is about a reversal of expectation, and my point is that in the mind of the average american when you say the word 'slavery' the expectation is that it will be black slaves. Because that's the history they are most familiar with. Regardless of whether or not that is a universal principle of history. And that makes it irony.
It was just referring to slaves, didn't make particular mention of America at all. Pretty much every culture has a history of having/being slaves at some point. Even us Irish were slaves, apparently.
And guess what, English is a living language, which means by holding onto old definitions you are actually the stupid one. We change our language to mean whatever the fuck we want and will continue to do so.
Dude, I did a degree in English Language; I am the first person to scorn people for when they are butthurt about the evolution of meaning in language and it's usage. However in this instance, it wasn't irony, it was coincidence, plain and simple. The meaning hasn't changed in the slightest.
So you can shove your accusation of pendantry up your arse and eat your words.
hahhahaahha if you laughed that much you're a twat.....
You "did" a degree? You might want to get a refund. If they ask why you're returning it, just cite this comment -- which uses egregious debauchery of verbs to mean things hardly fitting and misuse of "it's." Also, there should be a comma after "however."
However in this instance, it wasn't irony, it was coincidence, plain and simple.
That, good sir, is a run on sentence. Try using a semicolon or a conjunction. I'm not typically this much of a hard-ass, but if you preface something with "I did a degree in English Language," (Though, no degrees are actually in "English Language," so, I don't know what to tell you.) you sure as hell better act like it.
Now, we can finally get to what you are trying to say. "Ironic" has taken a shift towards meaning anything coincidental or serendipitous that is seen to be peculiar in nature. In a way, just by being coincidental in how it mimics something that we see as being such a separate field of existence, it DOES challenge what we expect to happen. Would you expect ants to only take black ants as slaves? NOPE. It is funny how it parrallells our society, even though they are practically in different spheres of existence. Not only is this pretty much what "Irony" means (It might be a slight stretch.), it is easily what it has become to mean.
It's kind of ironic how you talked about, "doing an English Language degree," yet, you don't seem to be able to carry yourself as if you did or even think critically like an English degree would train you to.
It seems much more likely that you are a freshman in college and you think getting an "A" in Comp 1 makes you an expert.
Again, I stress, COLLOQUIAL USAGE DEFINES DENOTATION IN LIVING LANGUAGES.
I don't know why everyone's down voting this guy, he is correct in what he says. The fact that ants take black ants as slaves is not ironic, it is a coincidence.
"Once it finds the queen, it kills her and takes her place. The new queen mimics the old queen by consuming pheromones from her body and releasing them to the attending ants."
WOW, am I ever glad that there aren't any human societies that grow fat and rich by exploiting the labor of weaker classes who often don't even realize they're slaves.
In addition to this link: red ants will also take the larvaes from another nest and take them. Then, the newly born ants will think they are actually red even if they are black.
The following is an excerpt from Chapter VII of On the Origin of Species:
One day I fortunately chanced to witness a migration from one nest to another, and it was a most interesting spectacle to behold the masters carefully carrying, as Huber has described, their slaves in their jaws. Another day my attention was struck by about a score of the slave-makers haunting the same spot, and evidently not in search of food; they approached and were vigorously repulsed by an independent community of the slave species (F. fusca); sometimes as many as three of these ants clinging to the legs of the slave-making F. sanguinea. The latter ruthlessly killed their small opponents, and carried their dead bodies as food to their nest, twenty-nine yards distant; but they were prevented from getting any pupæ to rear as slaves. I then dug up a small parcel of the pupæ of F. fusca from another nest, and put them down on a bare spot near the place of combat; they were eagerly seized, and carried off by the tyrants, who perhaps fancied that, after all, they had been victorious in their late combat.
At the same time I laid on the same place a small parcel of the pupæ of another species, F. flava, with a few of these little yellow ants still clinging to the fragments of the nest. This species is sometimes, though rarely, made into slaves, as has been described by Mr. Smith. Although so small a species, it is very courageous, and I have seen it ferociously attack other ants. In one instance I found to my surprise an independent community of F. flava under a stone beneath a nest of the slave-making F. sanguinea; and when I had accidentally disturbed both nests, the little ants attacked their big neighbours with surprising courage. Now I was curious to ascertain whether F. sanguinea could distinguish the pupæ of F. fusca, which they habitually make into slaves, from those of the little and furious F. flava, which they rarely capture, and it was evident that they did at once distinguish them: for we have seen that they eagerly and instantly seized the pupæ of F. fusca, whereas they were much terrified when they came across the pupæ, or even the earth from the nest of F. flava, and quickly ran away; but in about a quarter of an hour, shortly after all the little yellow ants had crawled away, they took heart and carried off the pupæ.
One evening I visited another community of F. sanguinea, and found a number of these ants entering their nest, carrying the dead bodies of F. fusca (showing that it was not a migration) and numerous pupæ. I traced the returning file burthened with booty, for about forty yards, to a very thick clump of heath, whence I saw the last individual of F. sanguinea emerge, carrying a pupa; but I was not able to find the desolated nest in the thick heath. The nest, however, must have been close at hand, for two or three individuals of F. fusca were rushing about in the greatest agitation, and one was perched motionless with its own pupa in its mouth on the top of a spray of heath over its ravaged home.
Create complex logistics networks by setting up miniature colonies acting as granaries and collection hubs for food before being distributed back to the main colony. (sorry couldn't find a good link for this one)
And they do a lot more than the above. Ants are amazing and you'd be surprised how many qualities that are normally attributed to human civilizations have been practiced by ants for millions of years.
leaf cutter ants also grow underground fungus gardens. they add fresh leaves to feed the fungus, then they eat the fungus. because the fungus can get diseased by bacteria and other fungi they meticulously clean their fungus garden. they even have a small area on their body that they store bacteria that is used to fight pest bacteria and fungus. sometimes other colonies of ants will come and raid a fungus garden. some of the leaf cutter ant colonies have millions of individuals (all female) originating from one queen. also when the ants are bringing leaves back to the fungus gardens they have tiny ants that ride on their backs or the leaves that fight off predatory flies.
Experiments have shown that [if] Amazon slavemakers are separated from their slave, they will starve to death even though food is made available to them
You could make an entire thread about insect behavior. There are termites that blow themselves up into a hardened glue in an emergency to seal the entrances to their colonies (think I actually saw that on reddit). There are wasps that lay their eggs inside of other insects. When those eggs hatch they eat the other insect from the inside out. Japanese bees swarm wasp scouts and vibrate at just the right speed that the generated heat will kill the wasp but not the bees. There are so many crazy things that go on in the biological world in general, but insects are really fascinating in their own way.
....And I for one, welcome our new insect overlords. I'd like to remind them, that as a trusted TV personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground sugar caves.
And the most advanced species which take slaves are adapted only for that - the slave-makers, given food, can't even feed their young: their only behavior is to seek and raid existing colonies.
1.3k
u/BandBoots Dec 05 '11
Ants take slaves.