Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Anne Hayes M.

The case of the headless ant by Science News for Kids 9/29/09
This was an article about how ants get their heads cut off. "For years scientists have known that flies can decapitate ants." Flies usually are just lucky and find a weaker ant then a normal one but fire ants have a poison that makes them some of the lucky ants.
This decapitated fire ant was a victim of a tiny fly whose young eat the ants from the inside out, eventually beheading them. This is a normal unlucky ant that the lucky flies got to first.

Caption: A phorid fly hovers above a fire ant before laying an egg in the ant’s thorax. Fire ant venom attracts the flies to the ants, scientists report. The fly is actually smaller then the ant in most cases such as this picture. I would rather be one of the luck ants.

A) I enjoyed this article. I thought it was very intresting. I would have never thought that a fly had more power over an ant.
B)What surprised me the most was that a fire ant had poison that protected itself from the fly.
C)My only question would be how exactly would the fly cut its head off? I would like to know more about what the fly is thinking while killing the ant.



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