Detecting ants 'pirates' weird

Scientists have discovered a new insect, which looks unusual in the Philippines. They nicknamed them "pirate ants" because they possessed a dark array of striped stripes like an eyepatch.

The official scientific name of the new species is Cardiocondyla pirata. They belong to a group of naturally growing ants from Thailand to the entire Indonesia - Malaysia region.

Sabine Frohschammer, a doctoral student at Regensburg University (Germany), said she and her colleagues had a field trip to the Philippines to search for different species of genus Cardiocondyla ants , known for their diversity. Amazing morphology and behavior of males.

The unique, dark-colored strip of stripes makes the pirate's eye cover. (Photo: Live Science)

Frohschammer's group collected a number of known ants but then suddenly saw an unknown, unknown ant hiding among large stones in a shady shallow stream.

"Due to the darkness of the rainforest and the translucent body parts, tiny ants are almost invisible to the eyes of ordinary people. Under the bright light and magnifying glass, we have discovered anomalous stripes. squeezed through the eyes of the ants and therefore always called them pirates, " said the research team.

The researchers concede that the function of the eye-mask pigments in pirate ants, which have almost no pigment on the body, remains a mystery, especially because this feature does not appear at any birth. other objects in the same group.

Pirate ants mate in the dark and have poor eyesight. They relied heavily on signs of awareness by touch and chemistry, not sight, to communicate with other individuals of the same species. This feature has eliminated the possibility that "eye patch" can act as some kind of sex signage.

Researchers surmise, pirate ants' eye patch may help fool their enemies. For predators, halftone stripes can create the feeling that the object is not an insect, but two separate objects on the ground.