In the second method, the nest void was filled with a thin slurry of orthodontal plaster poured into the nest entrance (Williams and Lofgren 1988).
This produced a (usually) perfect three-dimensional rendering of the nest's voids. The hardened cast was excavated and then reassembled to produce the finished cast. For reassembly, chambers were supported with steel rods driven into holes in a backboard. Because the shafts of P. badius are large in diameter, the thin slurry often completely filled a 3 m-deep nest in a single pour. The sandy soils of the Florida coastal plains allow the plaster slurry to displace the air within the chambers, filling them completely. Heavy clay soils often produce incomplete casts and voids within the plaster because of trapped air. Although a few images of the nest casts of several ant species have been published (Tschinkel 2003), the details of the nest architecture of P.+badius are presented here for the first time.Neat!
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theweaselking
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 01:22 pm (UTC)(Although I'd have preferred a notation, somewhere, that the nests were empty. Especially before they tried their alternative molten metal method.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 01:25 pm (UTC)I need to quit being so empathical.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 01:27 pm (UTC)#2: Work landscaping for a month. Then tell me about how the poor, poor ants are suffering.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 01:32 pm (UTC)I thought of that after I posted. Actually I was more thinking along the lines of "infesting gardens and kitchens," but the point is similar.
(Well, also it was less "suffering" and more "entire colony suffocated by plaster/vaporized by molten metal," because I didn't see anything about them having used abandoned nests. Maybe I missed that line, I skimmed most of the article.)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 01:48 pm (UTC)I fell asleep Saturday night watching a special about driver ants on the Discovery Channel. Does that make me an old man?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 01:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 02:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 04:21 pm (UTC)That and your taste in clothes.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 11:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-05 11:59 pm (UTC)LOL!