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TIL some species of ants farm aphids like we do cows (www.westcoastseeds.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/til@lemmy.world
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Link: https://www.westcoastseeds.com/blogs/wcs-academy/do-ants-farm-aphids.

Also ants that farm aphids select for certain traits.

e: added link

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[–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

  1. I used primitive and modern as a way to refer to more basal or derived traits in ant colonies that I hoped would be more accessible. This is commonly used in literature although a bit dated.

  2. Where did I say ants don’t have cognition? You just assumed this. Also, there are no examples of playing behaviour in ant species so far. Only the bumblebee paper. If you know of any publications on this topic that I don’t know about, please feel free to share. Maybe they do, still doesn’t really change much.

  3. Show me an insect manufacturing or using tools. Or one learning new techniques by watching others, or one teaching its offspring. These are some of the complex cognitive traits found in mammals and birds that have not been shown for insects as far as I know.

Believe me when I tell you that I have a profound interest and appreciation for insects, enough to shape career and education choices around them. But claiming that insects are cognitively even remotely on the same level as humans is not supported anywhere and a bit of a silly hill to die on.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    1. you used it incorrectly, both originally and now.

    2. you heavily implied this, and are doing so again here. Again, lack of research is not proof of null.

    3. leafcutter ants teach each other the neccessary steps for fungal feeding. They do not naturally know how to prepare the leaves. As far as you know is not a far distance, and is not a basis for dismissing an entire branch of the animal kingdom as lesser.

    The silly hill to die on is you acting like your lack of knowledge is equivalent to fact. It spits in the face of scientific research.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    1. I didn’t. I meant it, to use another terminology, as ancestral/derived traits. Maybe you get that.

    2. I didn’t, also you can’t prove absence of something as you should know.

    3. Do you actually believe ants have closely similar cognitive abilities to humans? Where does this idea come from? At the beginning of the century entomology textbooks actually featured flowcharts to predict insect behaviour. We found out that there is more individuality and adaptability but it’s still not comparable to animals with more complex brains.

    You have provided effectively 0 evidence to prove anything as wild as ants forming some elaborate society that would be even nearly as complex as that of humans. Show me this research that you speak of or maybe try to lay off the pop-sci a little.

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