According to more than 50 years of research by German researchers, Bob Holmes evolution came up with a biological version of a complex laboratory device long before scientists thought of the idea, and biologists already know that if the blade vibrates, it will scrape a cleaner slice from the soft tissue.
According to this principle, the researchers developed an instrument called vibration group to slice the tissue under the microscope for inspection.
Now, Jurgen Tautz and colleagues at the University of würtsburg say, Ye
Cutting Ants developed the same technology millions of years ago. Leaf-
The cut ants bite off the fragments of leaves, flowers, or stems, and they take them back to the underground nest to feed the fungus that forms their staple food.
At work, ants often make chirps similar to those made by crickets to seek help from other ants.
To make the noise, they bend the abdomen to make the file-
Just like the structure on one clip rubbing the scraper on the other.
If ants are trapped in the nest hole, they will ask for help in the same voice.
Tautz and his team pointed out that when the ants of chirants were eating the plants, the sound of chircoinciide coincided with the cutting stage of each bite, in each chirp sound, the vibration frequency of ants and leaves is about 1000Hz.
This vibration seems to make the soft tissue of the blade more rigid for the time being, thus making them cut more evenly.
To test this theory, the researchers attached a single isolated Ant lower jaw to a device that vibrates them and measured the force required to slice through the tissue of the tender leaves.
They found that as the vibrator was closed, the required force would pile up under the lower jaw with the blade tissue and then suddenly break and fluctuate violently.
However, when the vibrator runs at a speed of 1000Hz, the lower jaw smoothly passes through the leaves with almost uniform force (
Science, Volume 267, page 84).
However, these smoother cuts don't seem to have any time or energy to save the ants.
The researchers found that the overall force required to cut leaf fragments was similar regardless of whether the leaves were vibrated or not.
In the group of laboratories, chir chirping ants cut leaves faster than silent ants.
This makes it impossible for biologists to explain why this complex behavior has changed.
"I don't know why smooth cutting is particularly important to ants," said Thornford Porter, an ant expert at the USDA in Gainesville, Florida.