|
|
Article: Ant fight!
- Article from:
- NewsRx Health & Science
- Article date:
- November 15, 2009
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2009 NewsRX. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
A group of 'friend or foe' scent molecules have been isolated from colonies of Argentine ants. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Biology identified and synthesised the scents, describing how applying them to worker ants resulted in attacks from their former colony-mates.
Neil Tsutsui and colleagues, from the University of California, Berkeley, USA, worked with a team of researchers from the University of California, Irvine to carry out the ant experiments. He said, "Chemical signaling is the most ancient mode of communication, and it is still used in some form by all organisms. The elaborate social systems of ants are largely regulated by ...