6/2/2023 0 Comments Ants dont sleepThe social behavior of Leptothorax allardycei (Hymenoptera,įormicidae): time budgets and the evolution of worker reproduction. (2009), Polyphasic wake/sleep episodes in the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta. Cassill, Skye Brown, Devon Swick and George Yanev. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Sleep deprivation impairs precision of waggle dance signaling in honey bees. Does anyone know whether Cassill placed her artificial nests in such a way to minimize artificial disturbances, for example, placed them on vibration dampening pads? If not, it seems possible that something was disturbing those ants to keep them awake more often than usual.īarrett A. My thoughts: Having spent some time filming ants, I know that they are sensitive to vibrations we humans do not even notice, such as the laboratory incubators coming on and off in the room next door. What do you think of the “power nap” finding with fire ants? My thoughts: Seems like a reasonable idea, especially looking at the honey bee study.ģ. It seems evident that greatly reducing the number of available tasks at hand limits the conclusions that can be made about the behaviors observed. In a demonstration hive the bees usually have access to outside foraging, they have comb, they are going about their business as usual.The ants, on the other hand, have no soil to move, no myrmecophiles to interact with, no predators, no opportunity to move brood to optimal locations, etc. My thoughts: One thing that is immediately apparent in contrasting the honey bee studies with the ant experiments is that an artificial honey bee hive is much more “natural” than a laboratory ant nest. What do you think about the studies that observe ants spend a lot of time doing nothing? You can see a video of the set-up at the BBC Earth News.Ĭassill even went as far as to label Rapid Antennal Movements (RAM) as the invertebrate equivalent to Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep in vertebrates. Checking the posture and position of the antennae, she concluded that queens sleep 90 times per day for 6 minutes per nap, whereas workers dosed 250 times per day for roughly one minute at a time. She created an artificial colony with three queens, 30 workers and 30 larvae. None of these scientists have actually gone as far as to say these ants are sleeping though.ĭeby Cassill in 2009 broke with tradition and calls certain periods of rest in ants “sleep.” Working with fire ants, she videotaped ants in an artificial nest. 1990) and that Temnothorax albipennis workers are inactive about the same percentage of time in small colonies (44%) as in large colonies (46%) (Dornhous et. Nigel Franks’ group writes that Leptothorax acervorum workers in the nest are inactive for 72% of the time and and foragers 15% of the time (Franks et al. Blaine Cole (1986) reported that workers of the ant Leptothorax allardycei spent up to 55% of their time resting, which he called quiescent. Many myrmecologists have noticed that a certain portion of ants in laboratory colonies spend a lot of time doing nothing. Discover Magazine has an article with a brief video of sleepy bees dancing, shown here (with a sponsor ad at the end). They showed that depriving worker honey bees of sleep during the night, using a magnetic device, actually effects their ability to perform waggle dances the next day. conducted an experiment on sleep in honey bees. Other bees and even wasps have been known to “sleep” over night in flowers. In fact, there are bees that are affectionately called “sleeper bees” for their behavior of resting on plants in clusters over night.įor example, these long-horned bees of the tribe Eucerini (named for the long antennae present on males), are often seen resting in clusters on plant stems. Whether or not social insects sleep is a question that has gotten some definitive work in the bees. This leads to the question: are the ants sleeping? If you have ever watched the ants in an ant farm, you have probably noticed ants sitting around seemingly doing nothing.
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