#eciton

[quinnred]

My pieces for the Eciton (aka the "Ants made of men") for my Dark Orchid project as well as some sketches for how their faces work.

[futurebird]

These Nomamyrmex esenbeckii. of army ants live in South America and are among the few species of ants that do not build nests, they link their bodies together to make a structure called the bivouac.

These ants are almost totally blind. While ants generally tend to have poor eyesight (though there are exceptions, such as Gigantiops destructor and many Myrmecia sp.) so, it's even more interesting that this species has chunky antennae.

What I've noticed is that ants that do a lot of fighting tend to have more study antennae-- and when it comes to violence? These girls are among the most belligerent ants on the planet! Being nomads army ants always stay on the move, they run through the forest in waves up to a meter wide driving all living things from the bush, killing and eating every insect they encounter. That's where they get their other name "driver ant" because they drive a wave of creatures from the forest! There are many species of "ant bird" that feed almost exclusively on the creatures chased from their homes by driver ants.

So, these girls are built for fighting and can't afford delicate breakable antennas -- (This was originally a response to someone who posted this photo and asked why their antennae are so chunky. But that person has deleted their blog. So, I've reconstructed it here. )

[dendroica]

Newly discovered beetle catches a ride on the backs of army ants to get around

Dr. Christoph von Beeren of Germany’s Technical University Darmstadt was collecting “ant guests” during the nightly emigration of an army ant colony at La Selva Biological Station, a lowland Atlantic rainforest in Costa Rica, when he and his colleagues realized that the abdomens of some of the ants looked odd.

The researchers used their headlamps to get a better look. “From above it is difficult to detect the parasite, because the beetle closely resembles the ant’s abdomen,” von Beeren said in a statement. “When viewed from the side, however, it looks as if the ants had a second abdomen. To our surprise the odd looking ‘ant abdomens’ turned out to be beetles.”

Von Beeren and his colleagues described the newly discovered beetle species that they had spotted catching a ride on the backs of army ants in an article published in the journal BMC Zoology yesterday.

“To the human eye, the beetle is quite difficult to detect when attached to the ant as they are similar in size and shape to the host ants’ abdomen,” von Beeren added. “The outer shell of the beetle is also smooth and shiny, just like the ants. We think that by imitating this part of the ants’ body they might reduce the chance of recognition by the ants, allowing the beetle to travel undetected.”

In the BMC Zoology article, von Beeren and his co-author, Alexey Tishechkin of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory, write that what they’d observed was an “exceptional mechanism of phoresy,” which is when two organisms form a symbiotic relationship in which one (in this case, the beetle) travels on the body of another.

Many other organisms, including additional species of beetles as well as flies, mites, silverfish, and wasps, are also known to exploit army ant colonies. These army ant-dependent species “often show astonishing adaptations such as chemical and morphological mimicry of ant workers, protective morphologies, as well as life history adaptations to the hosts’ life cycles,” the researchers write in the study.

The new beetle, named Nymphister kronaueri after Daniel Kronauer, an army-ant researcher at The Rockefeller University in New York who first discovered the species, uses its strong mandibles to anchor itself to ants’ bodies during the nomadic army ants’ regular emigrations to new nesting sites. N. kronaueri was only found hitching a ride on one particular army ant species, Eciton mexicanum, primarily on medium-sized workers, which von Beeren and Tisheckin say demonstrates that it is a highly specialized ant guest.

Neotropical army ant colonies cycle between stationary and nomadic phases, which last about three and two weeks, respectively, for ants in the Eciton genus, von Beeren and Tishechkin note in the study. A colony will stay at the same site during the stationary phase and emigrate to a new nest site every night during its nomadic phase.

Organisms that depend on ants for their own survival during at least part of their lifecycle are called “myrmecophiles” — which literally translates to “ant lovers.” “Since army ants are nomadic, myrmecophiles exploiting their societies share the need to track their host colonies during the frequent colony emigrations to new bivouac sites,” the researchers write. “They achieve this by riding on or being carried by the ants, or by walking independently on the ants’ emigration trail.”

[quinnred]

Praise of an Ant

An unused Eciton that was meant for my Dark Orchid: Hietrost piece but just didnt quite fit.

[quinnred]

Dark Orchid: The Eciton

"When a man pleases a god, they are rewarded. The Polubog is no different, blessing the chosen of it's oil drenched followers with new form. The blessed latch to a surface and meld to it tightly. Their synthetic second skin and coat fuse and bloat like a cocoon as the form inside liquefies and slowly shapes into a unique fetus. When the writhing fruit is ripe, the cocoon peels inside out, spilling it's gestate. A new being is born, a soldier, a weapon against the Oil God's enemy. The Eciton. Ants made of men. Ants made against men. A hive to counter a hive. Listen for their applause, and fear it."

[rockyoushow]

Watch ECITON’s New Official Video “Peeled Off Intelligence”

Watch ECITON’s New Official Video “Peeled Off Intelligence”

Peeled Off Intelligence is a track taken from Eciton’s 4th album “The Autocatalytic Process”, out via Wormholedeath worldwide. Eciton have enriched the Danish death scene with uncompromising locomotive metal on their 3 albums “Oppressed”, “A Scent Of Veracity” and their WormHoleDeath 2020 release “Suspension Of Disbelief”. In the summer of 2022, the Army Ants will release “The Autocatalytic…

View On WordPress

[rockyoushow]

Danish Death Metallers ECITON Return With Their New Album "The Autocatalytic Process"

Danish Death Metallers ECITON Return With Their New Album “The Autocatalytic Process”

Danish death metal outfit ECITON have renewed their cooperation with Wormholedeath for their 4th album “The Autocatalytic Process” which will be released on July 22nd, 2022. Eciton have enriched the Danish death scene with uncompromising locomotive metal on their 3 albums “Oppressed”, “A Scent Of Veracity” and their WormHoleDeath 2020 release “Suspension Of Disbelief”. In the summer of 2022, the…

View On WordPress

[emanuro]

Army ants (Eciton sp.) patrolling the ground into the Amazon rainforest of Peru. To shoot these images without being literally subdued by the ants I used a remotely controlled flash system and the @venuslaowa 24mm probe lens to stay far from them but getting close enough to the soldiers. #ant #macro #wideangle #eciton #armyant #peru #amazon #rainforest #picoftheday @ilcp_photographers @conservacionamazonica https://www.instagram.com/p/CKB8SVngAtr/?igshid=mrd15zqlpvgh