Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.Romanes, George John
Science
Animal Intelligence: The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.
Romanes, George John
Animal behavior; Animal intelligence
The subterranean workers of this remarkable genus are
very clever. The Rev. H. Clark reports from Rio de
Janeiro, that the _Sa-ubas_ have made a regular tunnel
under the bed of the river Parahyba, which is there as
broad as the Thames at London, in order to reach a
storehouse which is on the opposite bank. Bates tells
us that close to the Magoary rice-mills, near Para,
the ants bored through the dam of a large reservoir,
and the water escaped before the mischief could be
remedied. In the Para Botanical Gardens an
enterprising French gardener did everything he could
to drive the _Sa-ubas_ away. He lit fires at the chief
entrances of their nests, and blew sulphur vapour into
their galleries by means of bellows. But how
astonished was Bates when he saw the vapour come out
at no less a distance than seventy yards! Such an
extension have the subterranean passages of the
_Sa-ubas_.
The recognition of the principle of the division of labour, which is
shown by the above observations, is further corroborated by the
following quotation from Belt:--
Between the old burrows and the new one was a steep
slope. Instead of descending this with their burdens,
they cast them down on the top of the slope, whence
they rolled down to the bottom, where another relay of
labourers picked them up and carried them to the new
burrow. It was amusing to watch the ants hurrying out
with bundles of food, dropping them over the slope,
and rushing back immediately for more.
The same thing has been observed, as already stated, of the leaf-cutting
ants--those engaged in cutting frequently throwing down the fragments of
leaf which they cut to the carriers below. The prevalence of this habit
among various species of ants therefore renders credible the following
statements of Vincent Gredler of Botzen which are thus recorded in 'der
Zool. Gart.,' xv. p. 434:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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