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OfflineMAIA
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Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator * 1
    #5376631 - 03/08/06 05:03 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

MUSHROOM MONOCULTURE, ANT STYLE

Archaeologists think that humans have been farming for about 10,000 years, but according to an item in the weekly magazine Science, leaf cutter ants have been growing fungi for some 23 million years. Even more amazing is that there is evidence that they have been tending the same lineage of fungus this whole time. Some 190 species of these ants live mostly in Latin America.

The ants cut pieces of leaves, cart them off to their hills, and pull them down into their chambers where they chew the leaves up into a pulp. The ants then pluck a tuft of fungus and plant it in the pulp. Soon fungi grow and the ants eat the new hyphal threads.

When queens leave the nest to start a new colony, they take along a little starter culture in the form of pellets. DNA studies reveal that the fungi in leaf cutter colonies throughout Latin America and three southern states of the USA are from the same clone.

FYI, http://www.sci.mus.mn.us/sln/tf/f/fungus/fungus.html

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INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS

Deep in the Cameroonian rain forests of west-central Africa there lives a floor-dwelling ant known as Megaloponera foetens, or more commonly, the stink ant. This large ant?indeed, one of the very few capable of emitting a cry audible to the human ear?survives by foraging for food among the fallen leaves and undergrowth of the extraordinarily rich rain-forest floor.

On occasion, while thus foraging, one of these ants will become infected by inhaling the microscopic spore of a fungus from the genus Tomentella, millions of which rain down upon the forest floor from somewhere in the canopy above. Upon being inhaled, the spore lodges itself inside the ant?s tiny brain and immediately begins to grow, quickly fomenting bizarre behavioral changes in its ant host. The creature appears troubled and confused, and presently, for the first time in its life, it leaves the forest floor and begins an arduous climb up the stalks of vines and ferns.

Driven on and on by the still-growing fungus, the ant finally achieves a seemingly prescribed height whereupon, utterly spent, it impales the plant with its mandibles and, thus affixed, waits to die. Ants that have met their doom in this fashion are quite a common sight in certain sections of the rain forest.

The fungus, for its part, lives on. It continues to consume the brain, moving on through the rest of the nervous system and, eventually, through all the soft tissue that remains of the ant. After approximately two weeks, a spikelike protrusion erupts from out of what had once been the ant?s head. Growing to a length of about an inch and a half, the spike features a bright orange tip, heavy-laden with spores, which now begin to rain down onto the forest floor for other unsuspecting ants to inhale.

MAIA


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Spiritual being, living a human experience ... The Shroomery Mandala



Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excess ever renders man happy.
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OfflineDistortedEyes
hello
Male

Registered: 03/16/04
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Loc: uk
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Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: MAIA] * 1
    #5376636 - 03/08/06 05:06 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

that's pretty weird but cool.


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Sometimes when I read threads visions of men sword fighting with their genitalia run through my head. - sadspacemonkey


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OfflineJadian
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Registered: 07/07/05
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Loc: The desert
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Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: MAIA] * 1
    #5376641 - 03/08/06 05:12 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Brain substrate, I never thought of it!


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Offlineshirley knott
not my real name
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Registered: 11/11/02
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Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: MAIA] * 1
    #5376995 - 03/08/06 09:33 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

nature rocks  :thumbup:


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buh


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InvisibleRESTLESS
C.M.L.W.

Registered: 06/21/05
Posts: 21,817
Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: MAIA] * 1
    #5377006 - 03/08/06 09:38 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Unbelievable.

Seriously, I don't believe it.


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OfflineTattoo
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Registered: 02/23/06
Posts: 1,574
Last seen: 8 years, 25 days
Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: RESTLESS] * 1
    #5377013 - 03/08/06 09:40 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

Like to see an ant try PFtek


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:dancing: one nigga run, two nigga run :runaway: :runaway:


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OfflineTattoo
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Registered: 02/23/06
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Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: Tattoo] * 1
    #5377015 - 03/08/06 09:41 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

They think they're so great


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:dancing: one nigga run, two nigga run :runaway: :runaway:


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Offlineeris
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Registered: 11/17/98
Posts: 48,024
Loc: North East, USA
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Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: MAIA] * 1
    #5377199 - 03/08/06 10:51 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

That's crazy yet interesting. Thanks for the article.


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OfflineGrapeSoda
Green Raindrop

Registered: 08/17/05
Posts: 37
Loc: France
Last seen: 17 years, 9 months
Re: Ants - the ultimate fungi cultivator [Re: eris] * 1
    #5377298 - 03/08/06 11:39 AM (17 years, 10 months ago)

I'm never smelling a contamed jar again. o_O


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