Indian jumping ants, or Harpegnathos saltator, are unique in more ways than one
14 April 2021 • 5:30pm
A decreased brain size is thought to allow the ants to divert their energy to egg production, as brain tissue is metabolically expensive to maintain, the study says
Credit: Clint Penick
Indian jumping ants can shrink their brains by 20 per cent and then expand them back again to allow energy to be temporarily diverted towards egg production, according to a new study.
The inch-long arthropods were already known to be able to catch and kill prey twice their size, jump four inches in the air and compete in 40-day royal rumble death matches to decide the next queen of the colony.
When the queen of the Indian jumping ants colony dies, the ants undergo a reversible process of shrinking their brains in a chance to become the new queen. It is an unknown behavior that has never seen before in any insects.
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