#phorid fly

[onenicebugperday]

Pseudoscorpions preying on ants - featuring parasitic Phorid flies in several of the photos!

Photographed by Nicky Bay // Website // Facebook

Shared with permission; do not remove credit or re-post!

[futurebird]

The fly that tricks ants and who never grows up.

Imagine you run a nursery. You & your sisters care for many helpless babies. One day you notice a baby is... different. It never grows up. It's not a baby ant! It's an adult phorid fly! A fly without legs, or wings! Can you spot the fake? Can you spot the fake? (Image source)

This ant is not carrying a larvae but one of the phorid flies. She found it and is taking it to the nursery where it "belongs" We don't know the whole life cycle of this sneaky parasitic insect yet. It was only discovered in 1995 and there is much more research to be done!

Vestigipoda sp. trick army ants into taking care of them.

I cannot stress how WIERD it is that an *adult* fly is totally immobile & looks like a larvae of another species. (army ants in this case)

Under a microscope you can see the fly-like features of Vestigipoda's face. Incredible becoming totally "helpless" is such an effective adaptation. I really want to know what the entire life cycle is like. How do they mate? What are they like when they are maggots? Are they disappointed to be a maggot and pupate only to be a larvae?

(Listen, creepy fly... at least you don't need to do anything to find food. The ants clean you and take care of everything. )

[fbwzoo]

Yeah, at this point, we're pretty sure it's phorid fly larvae, which uh.

🙃🙃🙃🙃

Fuck my life, I guess.

[evolutionsvoid]

Even before I started studying the Giant Ants, I was well aware of their powerful nature. Though their limbs appear to be thin and frail, a single Giant Ant has the strength to carry boulders on her back. With the use of their four upper limbs, they can carry extremely heavy loads, and throw objects with incredible force. To go with it, they have powerful mandibles that can slice through flesh and crack bone. When fighting, Giant Ants like to lock their jaws onto a target, clamping down so that they cannot escape or efficiently fight back. They then turn to their strong limbs to pull the foe apart. To top that all off, both Worker and Soldier castes possess stingers that drip with a burning venom. Though this orangish fluid is not lethal, it creates a painful burning sensation that can stagger foes and sap the will to fight. Throw all of that into one ant, and you have a deadly warrior. Then put a dozen of these Giant Ants together, and you have a force that could topple giants. When the Giant Ants fight together, they can tear through armies and rip apart foes within seconds. To even think that someone would dare try to invade their colonies is preposterous. Giant Ants are incredibly powerful, and their militant-like attitudes make them even more efficient at downing prey. There is no hesitation, no questioning. The loss of life and limb mean nothing to them, so you can't even try intimidating them into backing down. In fact, until earlier, I didn't believe that Giant Ants even knew fear. Their brains are so hardwired into serving the colony and Queen, their own mortality is hardly a thought. Imagine my surprise then, when I learned that Giant Ants apparently have a boogieman! I kid you not, the Giant Ants have an honest-to-goodness boogieman (or woman, more specifically) that exists in legends and tales. I didn't even know they had myths! Or stories! The sheer idea of a Worker telling some kind of spooky tale is baffling. I would never have believed any of this unless it came straight from their mandibles! I was prodding around the colony that I had befriended, asking about threats and how they deal with them, when one of the Soldiers dropped the name: Head Hunter. At first I believed it was some local who kept giving them grief, but her words seemed to suggest it was some kind of being or species. As a natural historian, I immediately went to my knowledge and notes for answers, but surprisingly came up empty! From all my travels, I had never heard of the creatures known as Head Hunters. So imagine the sheer amount of questions I badgered the poor Soldier with. Sadly, she was not the talkative type (but what Giant Ant is?) and did little to elaborate on her statement. She just said "we need to protect the colony from the Head Hunter." Anytime I asked why or what, she would just say "She thrives on our heads." Well what does that mean!? My goodness I was nearly ready to strangle her! Here I stood on the cusp of a new discovery, starved for information and lore, and she was holding her tongue! I abandoned my attempts on her, and went to a group of Workers that I had grown close with. My efforts with them over time had provided fruitful, as they were a bit more giving when it came to words. I asked them about the Head Hunters, which at first brought the same results. After enough questioning and leading on, they finally let out some more info on this mysterious being.

From what is described, the Head Hunter seems to indicate a species, but the Giant Ants never refer to them in a plural sense. When talking about the Head Hunter, they only speak of one and refer to it as a "she." They claim this being plagues all Giant Ant colonies, which would indicate a species that acts as a predator. No matter how hard I try to coax them into admitting there are multiple Head Hunters, they remain adamant in their statements that there is only one. Or perhaps they do not understand the concept that there can be different Head Hunters. I say "so the Head Hunter attacks you here?" and they say "yes." I then ask, "do other colonies, many kingdoms away, get attacked too?" and they say "yes." To which I say "so the Head Hunters are everywhere?" and they say "she is everywhere." Even when I question them about the distance and amount of resources wasted for such a large hunting ground, they do not break from referring to the Head Hunter as a singular entity. Regardless if she is one or many, the Head Hunter is supposedly a large fly-like creature that hunts Giant Ants. She does not walk, but hovers above the ground on a pair of rapid wings. Her body is black in color, and her eyes a bright red. Most of her arms end in sharp claws, and even her antenna are equipped with shredding blades. One of her arms is different from the others, as it has grown into a massive, organic scythe. Her claws align into a single blade, which can slice an ancient tree in half with a single swipe. From her abdomen juts a giant hook, which is used to impale ants who dare fight her. Her mouth is a razor proboscis, able to extend and burrow through flesh and chitin. Her exoskeleton is thick and impenetrable, and the burning venom of ants does little to her body. Though she may not have the strength of the Soldiers, her blades are quick and can slice through entire hordes without slowing. She descends upon colonies, seeking heads for her brood. With her scythe-like arm, she decapitates all who face her, and carry the trophies back to her lair. There she shall lay her eggs into the severed heads, which her young will feed and hatch from. Do take notice that the Workers stated that she bears larvae. They outright said to me that she lays eggs in their stolen heads and her young burst forth from them. So immediately I ask what happens to the young. How can there be only one of her if she constantly lays eggs? Surely they must grow up into an adult form or something. When I ask though, they only say "her young grow from our heads." AND?! And that's it!? They have nothing else! They say nothing else! Anytime I ask about adult forms or reproduction, they just go back to the grow-from-heads line! They seem to be completely ignorant of her life cycle past the head laying part. It's so weird! If you were to ask why they don't know this or care, they just say that it doesn't matter. "We keep her away from the colony, that is what matters," and that is the end of the story. Reaper fly shows up, lops off heads, takes them home, dumps babies into them and that is it. I have listened to many tales and myths, but this one really has to take the cake on sheer confusion. Communication with colleagues and other researchers have turned up nothing about Head Hunters or any kind of grim reaper-esque fly. Normally I would say that we have yet to discover it, but how does one miss a giant, scythe wielding insect? No records have turned up about her, and none of my natural historian friends have heard anything about her. It truly feels like that she is a legend. Some kind of boogieman that haunts the ants and keeps them ever vigilante. What baffles me is that the Giant Ants are not that type. They do not have myths or legends. They do not tell spooky stories and quiver in fear from the dark. They are made to serve and protect, that is it. Imagination is a department they severely lack in, so where does the Head Hunter come from? Surely she could not have sprung up from pure fantasy! At first I would be easy to dismiss her as a simple boogiewoman like Sarra-Ma-Yha, but I am now starting to question that. Dryads can come up with imaginary monsters, but Giant Ants, not so much. Did the Head Hunter truly exist at some point in time? Was she an actual menace to their kind? Did her kind die off, perishing in the tides of time? Perhaps she did. Perhaps all that is left of her is a terrible legacy, one that is passed down from Queen to Queen. The Queens transfer their knowledge from one to the next, through some kind of system I have yet to understand. Maybe the Head Hunter comes from some primordial Queen, who once faced this terrible beast in reality. Even after the monster was conquered, its threat passed on down the line, with each Queen wary of a being who breeds from their own bodies. The knowledge of a Queen is never questioned, so the Workers and Soldiers take it as fact. Perhaps this tale is but an echo from the past, one that shall never cease ringing as long as the line reigns on.... Chlora Myron Dryad Natural Historian

[futurebird]

Fairy Tales (but it’s ants)

Cinderella A Formica alate has a polyergus wicked stepmother, and evil polyergus alate step-sisters. The prince is searching for a bride and holds a great nuptial ball. Everyone at the ball is polyergus … except for the prince who was born from an unfertilized egg before his step mom killed his mother. He searches for the one with the “dainty mandibles” (all the polyergus have gaping mandibles)

Snow White and the Seven Rove Beetles Snow White is a bull ant (Myrmecia) her mother the queen can no longer lay fertilized eggs and is hiding it from the colony.  The queen commands a woodlouse to take Snow White into the woods and kill her because of a prophecy that a younger ant will take her throne. The woodlouse can’t bear to murder her and leaves her to be found by seven rove beetles who raise her in a little nest deep in the forest. The queen finds out she’s still alive and tries to poison her with Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, a fungus that will drive an ant mad and make her climb to the highest branch and die there. This backfires and the queen poisons herself, Snow White becomes a gamergate and queen of the kingdom.

Little Red Riding Hood A young worker ant (wood ant) is sent to help out at one of the other nests of her polydomus colony. When she gets to the satellite nest, which is supposed to have a queen in need of assistance with too many brood… there is a spider mimic pretending to be her aunt! Her older sister a brave major kills the spider and they take the orphaned brood back to the main nest.

Hanna and Gretel Two worker ants are foraging far from the nest for the first time when they encounter the mysterious house of a phorid fly. The fly tempts them with honeydew and candy, all along planning on laying eggs in their heads. But the workers are so exhausted she decides to fatten them up first.

[fbwzoo]

Thanks! I hope you're able to figure this out and that you're doing ok.

Thank you 💙 I'm upset but mostly curious and confused. At this point, more worried about the other crabs and the tank. 😫 Also posting this ask publicly for the pictures & our current guess!

Here's the new pictures I got, the first one is the underside and the second is top. The egg casings are around 4mm long & the larvae was 3mm. Not a great pic of the egg casings but they're ridged.

Pretty sure it's from a phorid fly, from what Jack and I are finding. Just have to see if the group confirms cleaning out the tank and if they know where tf it came from.

[kqedscience]

There’s More Than One Way to Decapitate An Ant

"In the rainforests of Brazil and Costa Rica, Brian Brown from the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has found a phorid that beheads ants in an entirely new way.

Brown is an authority on phorids and especially the ant-decapitating, bee-killing varieties. He has discovered around 500 species of them. In the field, he lures them in by crushing ants and other insects with forceps, and watching what arrives. Some phorids feed directly off the injured insects. Others lay their eggs inside. But one species, Dohrniphora longirostrata, did something different."

Learn more from Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science.