Thursday, June 29, 2006

Where Does One Get Itty Bitty Blindfolds and Who Would Be Dexterous Enough to Put Them on Ants?


Cousins
Originally uploaded by katzeye.
The latest research (did we pay for this with our tax dollars by the way? Just curious), is that ants count their steps, and that is how they know how far to go to find their homes (after they leave mine with whatever it is that was so important).

That sounded pretty bizarre to me, imagining the ants counting, two million, thirty-five thousand, and...drat, I forgot where I was!

But it gets better. It seems that there have been many theories over the years, here are some:

"One is that they do it like honeybees and remember visual cues, but experiments revealed ants can navigate in the dark and even blindfolded."

I just want to know who blindfolded a bunch of ants, and how they did it!

"Next, the researchers performed a little cosmetic surgery.
They glued stilt-like extensions to the legs of some ants to lengthen stride. The researchers shortened other ants' stride length by cutting off the critters' feet and lower legs, reducing their legs to stumps."

Just where is Peta anyway???

"The ants on stilts took the right number of steps, but because of their increased stride length, marched past their goal. Stump-legged ants, meanwhile, fell short of the goal."

I am just imagining all these ants, their "feet and lower legs" cut off, unable to get home again. This is truly heart-breaking. And then those ants on stilts.

Who answered the ad to put stilts on ant legs anyway? What was the going rate for that task and what kind of people showed up to apply for the job? And what about all those ants on stilts who marched right past their home?

At least I know where they are, they are marching into my kitchen! Ants on stilts!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This made me laugh out loud!

Anonymous said...

LOL! This is hilarious! But you know, don't you, that no "Americans" would do that kind of work, putting stilts on ants? Only illegal aliens will do that kind of work! (Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Anonymous said...

i want to be an ant researcher! i want a blind folded pet ant on stilts!

Anonymous said...

LOL! There's an ad on this site now for buying stilts online! Very cool!

Anonymous said...

I never know when to be pissed off at government funded research, or when it will produce something truly valuable, like putting seaweed in toothpaste!

Arlo Jorgensen

Anonymous said...

This is just too funny! But it's also kind of scary. I think I'd prefer it if my hard earned tax dollars went to something else, frankly.

Anonymous said...

If anyone has ant problems, try Grant's cyrstals. They work!!!

... said...

Arlo, what in your opinion would be good about seaweed in toothpaste? Just curious.

... said...

anon-1

Who knows, maybe the ant blindfolding and stilting research will produce some kind of marvelous results for human kind in the future. But I do know that if I went to my bank to ask for a loan to support me while I did research involving blindfolding ants, I think they would laugh their heads off at me and then call for the bouncer.