
Grooming Habits
February 19, 2010I suppose that my obsession with ant death is not too surprising given that Edie continues to parade about with the ever-deteriorating dead bodies.
So when I see an ant curled up in a ball, I immediately wonder if it is dead, and if so, whether it is a dead ant that I’m already familiar with, or a newly dead ant? I know that they’re all going to die sooner than later (the AWM has prepared me for a 2-3 month life expectancy), but I’d like to keep the deaths prior to that time-frame to a minimum.
Initially, I was under the impression that ‘ant curled into ball = dead ant’, but it turns out that the ants turn themselves into balls as part of their grooming routine.
You can see where I might get confused. Also, ants are more flexible than you’d think.
The next ant-death-related-panic I had was due to an ant appearing immobile whilst another ant was interacting with it in some way. Again I am thinking: “Here’s Edie come to fetch the next dead ant.”
But no – it turns out that the ants will also groom each other, and when doing so, the one being groomed will freeze, motionless, sometimes in quite a strange position, while the other ant does the grooming.
It turns out that Smithie’s mound is communal grooming central. More often than not, I will find 2 or 3 or more ants there grooming each other.
That is an ant orgy if I’ve ever seen one. Hot ant-on-ant action!