We bring to your attention an article about the ant parasite Lomehuza, which, by an amazing coincidence, can be a model of any degrading and dying society in general, and the current Russian society in particular.
STAGE 1: Infection
In terms of their social structure, ants are the creatures closest to humans on Earth. Each new discovery in myrmecology (the science of ants) only confirms this.
Before us is a healthy nest of the red forest ant (Formica rufa). This species is characterized by a domed anthill, the upper layer of which consists of a ten-centimeter layer of sticks, needles, dry leaves, and pebbles. The nesting material is constantly stirred by ants so that the anthill does not start to rot - this is a kind of forced ventilation. The height of our anthill is 56 centimeters, the diameter is 98 centimeters. The dome has 11 holes. The approximate population of the anthill is about 10 thousand individuals. Rim chambers are located under the dome, in which eggs, larvae and pupae of ants are stored. Deeper still - rotten stump or large branches. Underground, at a depth of 1.5 meters, there are chambers communicating with each other. The queen lives in one of them.
Ants at work.
There is a strict hierarchy and distribution of roles in the anthill. The nest is run by a queen - a female laying eggs. Worker ants are also females, but they do not produce offspring as long as the queen is alive. The life span of the queen is 15-20 years, the working ant is up to 7 years. Males live only one season, they do not participate in the life of the anthill and die immediately after mating.
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In the immediate vicinity of the queen, there is a retinue of 10 to 12 working ants, they take care of her: they lick her and feed her. These are, as a rule, young ants, since all the inhabitants of the nest go through about a month's stage of courting either the queen or the larvae. Then they move to the farthest part of the anthill patrol zone (its radius reaches 5-6 meters) and there they are looking for food - foraging. The ant transfers the found food up to the levels, and only from there it is distributed throughout the anthill. Together with food, the anthill is nourished by a special pheromone - a substance that the queen secretes. It contains information about the health of the queen and the condition of the nest. The ants from the retinue lick this substance from the queen, transfer it to a special goiter and transfer it to each other along a chain. Thus, all individuals of the ant society are included in a single information space.
Forage ants.
The anthill has its own punishment system. For example, if a healthy forager ant returns to the anthill several times in a row with nothing, he is "executed" - killed and allowed to feed himself. It is curious that ants act completely differently with those who have lost their ability to work as a result of injury. They are fed as long as they are able to ask for food, that is, to tap their antennae on certain parts of the head of a healthy ant.
Worker ant.
Ants are active predators, but at the same time they keep “livestock”. Aphids play its role, and the ants eat not only her, but also her secretions. This is not a form of parasitism, because without ant care, aphids die much earlier from other predators. Ants graze aphids on nearby plants, protect them. And at the first request, the aphid gives them excess nectar. To "milk" the aphid, the ant tickles its belly with its antennae.
But sometimes a small light brown beetle sits on the anthill - lomehuza. The beetle enters the rim chamber, where the ant offspring is kept, and lays eggs there. To all attempts of the inhabitants of the nest to deal with the stranger, he responds by secreting a special substance, which the ants immediately lick and fall into a state of euphoria. Under the influence of this substance, they simply step aside and calm down for a while.
This is how the death of the anthill begins.
STAGE 2: Enemy Appearance
Lomehuza, the "drag dealer beetle" (Lomechusa strumosa), which infected our anthill, is an insect from the myrmecophilic group. In total, there are 266 species of myrmecophiles - insects and other invertebrates that live with ants. There are many parasites among them. But representatives of this group of freeloaders either enter into a mutually beneficial relationship (symbiosis), or cause damage that does not lead to the death of the entire nest. Everything except Lomehuza.
This species was first described in detail by the German explorer Wassmann in 1897. This is a tiny bug - about three times smaller than a ginger forest ant. Most often, it enters the nest from the air and enters through one of the inlets.
The ants do not obstruct him in this, because they are immediately carried away by the narcotic substance that he secretes. Moreover, they immediately begin to feed him, since the beetle knows how to ask for food like an ant - by tapping with its antennae on certain parts of the head. Sometimes the lomehuza enters the anthill from a neighboring nest, with which a healthy anthill has a good relationship. Infection occurs on exchange roads. Ants willingly share "drag-dealer beetles" by transporting them on their belly. In the same way, they carry lomehus with them, budding from their anthill in order to create a new family.
Lomehuza in action
Lomehuza has exactly the same process of offspring development as in an ant: an egg - a larva - a pupa - an adult insect.
The female "drag dealer beetle" lays 100-200 eggs right next to the ant eggs - they are absolutely no different. When the larva of Lomehusa hatches, one difference becomes noticeable - its abdomen is concave. But at this stage, she already knows how to ask for food and begins to secrete the drug, so the ants now, although they recognize the stranger, begin to take care of the Lomehuza larva as their own offspring. Adult beetles live here, in the anthill. They will live here as long as the anthill is able to feed them, drawing off more and more of its resources. But so far this process takes place under the dome and is hidden from the eyes of the observer. It is possible to distinguish an anthill affected by a lomehuza from a healthy one at this stage only in sunny weather, when all the inhabitants of the nest crawl out to the surface of the dome to warm up. But after a few minutes, the ants drag the Lomehuz back under the dome. They also think they are in command of the anthill.
STAGE 3: New disease
Until now, the disease of our anthill has developed in a latent form. Only a specialist myrmecologist could see it. In the dome chamber, together with their offspring, the ants raised the larvae of Lomehuz - their future death. They recognized strangers in them, but could not resist them: the larvae secrete a narcotic substance, which the ants cannot resist.
But now even a layman, if he looks closely at the dome of the anthill, it becomes clear that something is wrong with the nest. Compared to other anthills, his life seems to be inhibited. The ants are much less active here, the patrolling zone of the nest has narrowed, and even where foragers still work, you can see the following picture: an ant is trying to drag something, but then it quits its job and just wanders around.
The first thing that comes to mind is that they are all already "high". But this is not the case. Those who are under the influence of a substance secreted by lomehuza, as a rule, sit inside an anthill. The inhibited individuals that we observe on the surface are already a new generation of ants. By analogy with humans, they can be called down ants.
In the language of science, they are called pseudoergats. According to the basic plan of the structure, these are still working individuals, however, their chest part is slightly enlarged compared to a healthy individual. Therefore, outwardly, they are a cross between working individuals and females. In fact, pseudo-ergats are unable to lay eggs or mate with males. Nor can they fully perform the functions of a working ant.
The pseudoergats are still trying to do some work, since there are still enough active ants in the nest that make them work, but they do it very badly. However, among active ants, more and more individuals are hooked on the substance secreted by the "drug dealer", so that the coercion on their part is getting weaker. At the same time, antisocial ants eat on an equal basis with everyone. Thus, the balance of expenditure and income items of the budget of our anthill is violated, the ants begin to lack forage to feed everyone - the queen, and lomehuz, and pseudoergats, and healthy ants, the number of which is decreasing more and more rapidly.
Studying this phenomenon, scientists-myrmecologists at first believed that the appearance of pseudo-ergats is associated with underfeeding of the larvae, since ants now give a significant part of their food to the lomechus. Another version was put forward - pseudo-ergats appear as a result of a virus disease carried by "drug dealers" beetles. However, then science has established that the reason for the appearance of pseudoergats is the same narcotic substance secreted by Lomehuses. That is, now in our anthill, the addiction to drugs has grown into the stage of an epidemic of drug addiction, which determines not only the behavior of ants, but also their physiological structure.
STAGE 4: External Intervention
Our anthill is degrading more and more rapidly. The narcotic substance secreted by the parasitic beetles Lomehuses caused the appearance of down ants (pseudoergats) in the nest, which are not capable of either procreation or active socially useful activities. Lomehus and pseudo-ergats are becoming more and more in the anthill. This means more and more freeloaders and less food. A little more, and the degradation process will become irreversible.
If the anthill were more numerous, the process could drag on for many years: beetles-"drug dealers" reproduce more slowly than ants, they simply would not keep up with the population growth, affecting only some sectors of the nest. But our anthill is small, so only external intervention - cleaning - can save it.
We should hurry up. Cleaning the anthill from lomehus is possible until the down ants have had time to breed in large numbers. For cleaning, we need two containers (ordinary buckets with tight lids are suitable), a large piece of polyethylene 1.5 by 1.5 meters in size, rubber gloves and a spatula. We find the healthiest sector of the anthill, cut it off with a spatula like a piece of pie, quickly move it into a bucket - along with ants, larvae, eggs and nesting material - and close it tightly with a lid. Then pour the contents of the bucket with ants in small portions onto polyethylene and carefully sort through. The way they sort out cereals for porridge: we simply move healthy ants and nesting material from one pile to another. We catch "beetles-drug dealers" and hopelessly sick ants-downs (pseudo-ergats), crush and throw them away. We immediately transfer each peeled portion of the anthill to the second bucket.
Lomehuz is easy to recognize - they are very different from ants in size (2-3 times smaller) and color (bright brown). It is more difficult with pseudoergats - they hardly differ from healthy ants. But they are betrayed by their behavior. Healthy individuals immediately begin to perform their functions: foragers collect building material scattered over polyethylene, nesting ants show concern for larvae and eggs, guard ants bite the offender. Only pseudo-ergats wander around.
The whole cleaning procedure took us just over an hour. Dead Lomehuzes and pseudoergats fit into one faceted glass - we have dissected some of them for scientific purposes. During the cleaning, we came across one female queen, but even if all of them remained in the infected nest, there was no need to worry: just in August, the ants are swarming - the mating season. Winged females and males appear in the nest, they actively mate in the air and there is no shortage of fertilized females. Now all that remains is to find a place for the surviving anthill.
And no one will help those who remained in the nest affected by Lomehuz.
STAGE 5: Life After Death
The previous stages of the experiment showed that an anthill affected by lomehuses ("drag-dealer beetles" parasitizing with the help of a narcotic substance secreted by them) inevitably perishes. The only chance of salvation is to resort to forced cleaning by manually removing the lomehuz and hopelessly sick ants (pseudoergats). Unfortunately, our anthill was already hit by the drug addiction epidemic so much that only a part of the nest was saved. The rescued individuals are now in our bucket, tightly closed with a lid.
Now you need to find a place where they could settle down and establish a new nest. Red forest ants love moisture, so the edges and clearings disappear immediately. The best place is in the forest, identical in composition to the one where our previous anthill was. A prerequisite is that the distance from the mother's nest must be at least a kilometer. Otherwise, our healthy ants will simply return to the dying anthill, and nothing will save them. Neighborhood with other nests, even if they are not affected by lomehus, is also undesirable: their inhabitants are likely to react hostile to strangers and the nascent anthill will be plundered. There are some species of forest slave ants that capture larvae from other nests and then raise slaves for themselves.
Finally we found the perfect spot - in a spruce forest, next to a small rotten tree stump. Gently pour out the contents of the bucket, and the ants instantly begin to settle in a new place. The queen and nesting ants dig holes in the ground, other individuals lay larvae and eggs in them, others collect the nesting material poured from the nest, and the fourth begin to patrol the area. The land extracted during the construction of burrows is immediately used to build a rampart around the future nest - this resemblance to human cities is characteristic of all settlements of red forest ants. To speed up the construction, you can sketch leaves, twigs, sawdust around the circumferential shaft - the ants immediately pick them up and use them in business.
Compared to how it happens in nature, our anthill is built in more difficult conditions. Usually a family, forming a new nest, does not break ties with the mother's nest and for a long time receives help and support from there. Nevertheless, even in conditions of complete isolation, our anthill is reviving and already on the third day takes on its usual shape. After another 3 days the dome grows up to 15 centimeters, and after a week our anthill is no different from the previous one.
Two weeks later, on the site of the first anthill, we found a mound, which has already begun to overgrow with grass. There are no more ants here, there is no one to sort out the nesting material, the dome has ceased to be aired and began to rot.
And in the new place, the dome grew by another 5 centimeters. This nest is no longer afraid of "drug dealer beetles". An interesting fact has long been established by the science of ants - myrmecology: an anthill cleared of lomehuz acquires immunity against their narcotic substance. Why - scientists do not know, but it is so.
This article shows a vivid example of the destruction of society on the fifth management priority.
The experiment was carried out with the help of the head of the Mirmecological reserve "Peshki", Doctor of Biological Sciences Anatoly Zakharov, as well as scientific advisor Tatyana Putyatina, Professor Doctor of Biological Sciences Gennady Dlussky.
Dmitry Sokolov-Mitrich, Tatiana Putyatina