But theres a twist to Choes discovery.These ants ave a little bit like zombies(僵尸).Choe says that the living ants,not just the dead ones,have this death chemicals.In other words.While an ant crawls around,perhaps in a picnic or home,its telling other ants that its dead.
What keeps ants from hauling away the liring dead?Choe found that Argentine ants have two additional chemicals on their bodies,and these tell nearby ants something like,Wait-Im not dead yet,So Choes research turned up two sets of chemical signals in ants:one says,m dead.the other set says,m not dead yet.
Other scientists have tried to figure out how ants know when another ant is dead. If an ant is knocked unconscious,other ants leave it alone until it wakes up.That means ants know that unmoving ants can still be alive.
Choe suspects that when an Argentine ant dies,the chemical that saysWait-Im not dead yet quickly goes away.Once that chemical is gone,only the one that saysm deadis left.Its because the dead ant no longer smells like a living ant that it gets carried to the graveyard(墓地),not because its body releases new unique chemicals after death,said Choe. When other ants detect thedeadchemical without thenot dead yetchemical,they haul away the body. This was choes hypothesis(假设).
To test his hypothesis,Choe and his team put different chemicals on Argentine ant pupae(蛹). When the scientists used them deadchemical,other ants quickly hauled tbe treated pupae away. When the scientists used theWait-Im not dead yetchemicals,other ants left the treated pupae alone.Choe believes this behavior shows that thenot dead yetchemicals override(优先于) thedeadchemical when picked up by adult ants. And that when an ant dies,thenot dead yetchemicals fade away.Other nearby ants then detect the remainingdeadchemical and remove the body from the nest.
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