The party line is that ants evolved agriculture 60 million years ago with fungus growing. Ants t and so they, you know, collected bits of like, animal poop or what not. And so famously, now, leaf cutter ants will cut leaves and they'll grow a big garden. They use the same kind of integrated management that we use in our crops. But also, analogously, in addition to milking, cows occasionally will kill them and eat em.
You have ants. We all have ants, but do we KNOW ants? Get ready for cult-leader queens, bullet ant stings, kitchen pest hacks, the dynamics of a billion-sister megacolony. Dr. Terry McGlynn sits down to have a BIG discussion about itty-bitty creatures in this encore because I was out of town seeing my family and just needed a week off. Learn about tropical ants, urban ants, how they walk on water, which ones are picky eaters, which ones make weird sounds, what ant movies are bunk, and some help-help takeaways. Also: sniffing your relatives before deciding to kill them. Ooooh, it’s a classic.
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Sound editing by Steven Ray Morris & Jarrett Sleeper of MindJam Media
Transcripts by Emily White of The Wordary
Website by Kelly R. Dwyer
Theme song by Nick Thorburn