Weightlifting ants

Friday, February 19th, 2010 | Ants, Behavior, Education, Science

"Oecophylla smaragdina can carry more than 100 times its own body weight while upside down on a smooth surface, thanks to its sticky feet." Image: Thomas Endlein, University of Cambridge via NewScientist

NewScientist posted photographs from the competition held by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to showcase images of their latest research. In a single iconic image, the first one shows the weight that an ant is capable of carrying and how strong the suction devices in her feet are.

I have blogged about these adhesive devices in the ant’s feets before (called arolia in leet speak, singular arolium), and the very first image I used back then happens to be from the same ant species in the image above.

Foot of a Oecophylla smaragdina worker. Pretarsal claws and manubrium in red; arolium in yellow; tarsi in green (Scanning Electron Micrograph, Roberto Keller/AMNH)

(h/t to P. Beldade)

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Tags: Arolia, Arolium, Oecophylla smaragdina

3 Comments to Weightlifting ants

Pete Yeeles
February 21, 2010

Roberto, out of interest do you know if Oecophylla smaragdina have any kind of adaptation to reinforce their joints? I have engaged in numerous “tugs of war” with these guys, and am always amazed by a) how much force I have to exert to get them off the leaf, and b) how they never lose a limb!

Roberto Keller
February 21, 2010

Not that I know of Pete, and I don’t know Oecophylla in the field.

I just went through my set of SEMs for the species. There’s nothing I would say is unusual on their legs externally compared to other formicines. The only thing I can think of is their very elongated thorax: the middle segment is particularly large, and since in workers there are muscles that span from inside the base of the legs (coxae) to the roof of each segment, that means those muscles pulling the legs are indeed quite long. Now, if that helps them strengthen their legs, no idea.

Green Tree Ants « ptygmatics
June 5, 2010

[...] feet and impressive weight-holding ability (see Archetype for some great info on sticky feet, here and here). A single colony can span multiple trees, with many of these nests in varying sizes. They [...]

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