CATDOLL : CATDOLL: Why do ants protect aphids?

1. Why do ants protect aphids?

Hi, sir. Level 3. It turns out that aphids suck nutrients from plants, but their excrement, honeydew, is a sweet and delicious food for ants. Ants protect aphids, and aphids repay them with honeydew. This phenomenon is called "symbiosis" in biology. The water-drop-like feces of aphids have become desserts and coffee in the bar of the ant kingdom. In order to get more desserts, ants raise a large group of aphids like humans raise sheep. After the leaves are eaten by aphids, the ants will move the wingless and slow-moving aphids to another fresh tree. If the natural enemy of aphids, the seven-spot ladybugs, invade, the ants will strive to drive them away. Therefore, some people also call ants excellent herders in the insect world.

2. Why do ants protect aphids?

Ants take extra care of aphids and protect them desperately. If aphids are blown to the ground by strong winds or other reasons, ants will pick them up gently with their mouths and send them to the stems or leaves of plants, or carry them to their caves, hide for a while, and then send them to the plants. Ants come and go in the aphid swarm, and drive away the natural enemies of aphids, allowing aphids to harm crops more recklessly.

Why do ants protect aphids so hard? We know that aphids absorb nutrients from plants, but their excrement, honeydew, is a sweet and delicious food for ants. Honeydew is a sticky, transparent, sweet substance containing sugars, proteins, dextrin and other ingredients. In the plots where sorghum aphids are seriously infested, when thousands of aphids spray honeydew from their anus, it is like a drizzle. Ants love to eat this sweet substance. Wherever they smell honeydew, they will rush there in groups.

Sometimes, we can see more interesting phenomena in fields with aphids: when ants are eating honeydew in a group of aphids, they will use their stick-shaped antennae to slap the abdomen of the aphids, so that the aphids can secrete more honeydew to satisfy their appetite. Darwin described this phenomenon in his book "The Origin of Species": "... Then the ants began to slap the abdomen of the aphids with their antennae, first one, then the other. Once the aphids felt the antennae of the ants, they immediately raised their abdomens and secreted a drop of clear sweet liquid, which the ants swallowed in a hurry. Even very young aphids have such actions. This activity is instinctive, not the result of experience."

Ants protect aphids, and aphids repay them with honeydew. This phenomenon is called "symbiosis" in biology.

Aphids absorb nutrients from plants, but their excrement, honeydew, is a sweet and delicious food for ants. Ants protect aphids, and aphids repay them with honeydew. This phenomenon is called "symbiosis" in biology. Aphids' watery feces become desserts and coffee in the bar of the ant kingdom. In order to get more desserts, ants raise large groups of aphids like humans raise sheep. After the leaves are eaten by aphids,

Aphids produce honeydew as their excrement, and ants love to eat this sweet substance. When they smell honeydew, they will run there in groups.

Ants and aphids have a symbiotic relationship, so one will protect the other.

This is because aphid excrement is a favorite food for ants.

3. Is it a knowledge passed down from generation to generation or recorded in the genes of ants to raise aphids?

Genetic memory!!

Ants rely on genes. Basically, except for humans and a few highly intelligent animals, there are very few animals that can learn and pass on intelligence.