Amazonian Torture Ants!

[theweaselking]

A fierce species of Amazonian ant has been seen building elaborate traps on which hapless prey are stretched like medieval torture victims, before being slowly hacked to pieces.

With cunning and patience, Allomerus decemarticulatus worker-ants cut hairs from the stem of the plant they inhabit, and use the tiny fibres to build a spongy snare, Nature magazine reports.

This ingenious feat of engineering has only ever been observed in one other species of related ant, French researchers say. The ants cut hairs to clear a path under the plant stem, while leaving some hairs standing to form "pillars" on top of which the lethal platform will sit. Using the plant hairs they have harvested, the ants weave the platform itself, which is bound together and strengthened using a special fungus. When the ants have completed the chamber they puncture holes all along its surface, each just big enough to poke their heads through.

Then, hundreds of worker ants climb into the chamber and wait for an unfortunate victim.

Comments

[baanrys.livejournal.com]

that's incredible. :)

[pope-guilty.livejournal.com]

I knew Rumsfeld wasn't human.