It's nothing new for animals to steal food from each other, but most instances usually involve force. Ants are no different in that they will also take what isn't theirs. A newly discovered ant species shows, however, that violence is not always the answer.
Dr. Scott Powell, an assistant biology professor at the George Washington University, was in Brazil's savannah region researching turtle ants in the field when he noticed something unusual. There was a different ant species infiltrating the territory of the Crematogaster ampla, the host turtle ant. These turtle ants were known for their aggressiveness, but they weren't attacking the invaders. Maybe it was because the "guests" looked similar to the C. ampla.
"I did a true double-take when I first saw this new species. As I turned away, after seeing what appeared to be large numbers of host foragers, it registered that a couple of the ants I had just laid eyes on were not quite like the others. Turning back around, I managed to re-find the few peculiar ants in the masses of host ants, and everything followed from there," recounted Dr. Powell.
It wasn't until almost two years of further research and discussions later with trained taxonomists and fellow biologists that Dr. Powell finally had a name for the C. ampla's "guests."
Commonly referred to as mirror turtle ants, Cephalotes specularis was the ant species Dr. Powell observed alongside the C. ampla in Brazil. Mimicry is natural in many animals but the C. specularis is the first ant species to visually mimic their targets and parasitize a colony.
C. ampla didn't attack the C. specularis at the time because the latter have completely mastered the movements of the turtle ants. They were also dodging the turtle ants carefully to prevent detection as it was possible for the C. ampla to identify them by their scent.
Because of the elaborate mimicry employed by the C. specularis, they were able to move around the C. ampla's territory freely, gaining access to food stores and following foraging trails to other sources of food.
According to further research done by Dr. Powell, 89 percent of host ant territories were revealed to be parasitized. As one of his most exciting discoveries, C. specularis is seen by Dr. Powell as a chance to learn more about how parasitism has evolved.
Dr. Powell's discovery of the C. specularis is published in The American Naturalist and was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation.
