Jul 8
Uncharismatic Fact of the Day
As it turns out, you don't actually have to be an ant to live in an ant colony- you just have to smell like one! Cockroach species in the genus Attaphila live inside leaf-cutter ant colonies and feed on the fungi that the ants grow for their larvae. They avoid detection by releasing pheromones that trick the ants into thinking they're part of the colony, and they get around by hitching rides on the backs of dispersing queens or on leaves being carried by foragers returning to their nests.
(Images: (Left) a male Attaphila spp. cockroach by Nehring et al. 2016; (right) a male Attaphila paucisetosa sitting on the head of an Atta colombica, by Bohn et al. 2021)