The ant that drinks its childrens' blood

And now, to round off this month’s Naked Genetics, it’s time to explore another quirk of evolution...

You join me in the humid forests of Madagascar. When you think of madagascar, what springs to mind? Lemurs? Unnecessarily long names for capital cities? Both answers are absolutely valid. But, move over Romania, for here there are real life vampires. Vampires that drink their own children’s blood. Kind of.

Our search for such a horrifying creature leads us to the forest floor at dusk. And, whilst the scene looks like a fairly standard one found in a tropical forest, take a closer look at that seemingly innocuous ant that is passing by. Notice anything unusual? What’s that? You don’t spend time comparing the mouthparts of ants? Well, don’t you look foolish. Fine, let me introduce you to Adetomyrma venatrix, also known as… the dracula ant.

Ok lets be real for a moment, for how shocking the concept of vampires drinking blood is, its an act that is really not all that uncommon in the animal kingdom. Mosquitos, the world’s worst thing, are perhaps the most common instance of sanguinivory. I’m sure a few of us may well have fallen victim to a leech, maybe even a tick, maybe even a vampire bat. And like, I get it. Blood is full of nutritious delicious proteins and what have you. I’m not here to judge, we all have to survive somehow. But there is definitely a difference between having a snack on a nearby organism, and deeming your own offspring to be fair game. What is the evolutionary advantage of keeping it in the family?

If you were to follow one of these ants back to its nest, you’d find a humble abode of about 500 other ants going about their daily business. Finding food, protecting the queen, and raising their young. And unbelievably, drinking their young's blood is part of that protective process. This is a mutually beneficial act.

I also just want to sidenote here for the two people yelling at me for calling it blood. I know ants don’t have blood. It’s called haemolymph, I know there’s a difference. It’s the invertebrate version of blood. I’m sorry I lied to you, I hope one day you can come to forgive me. Anyway.,,

This is a mutually beneficial act. Not only do the adults get a refreshing glass of… insect juice. Look it’s grim but it’s full of nutrients. The offspring benefit because excess haemolymph can cause infections to build up and make the larval ants ill. By draining it, it lowers the risk of the ants getting ill.

The act of drinking is pretty much as you'd imagine. The adult pierces the larva's skin and laps up the haemolymph that drains out. It sounds fairly grim, but the wounds heal quickly enough and the larva grows up big and strong. Isn’t nature wonderful.

And that’s it for the vampirism side of things, which is not a sentence I ever anticipated saying. But I also couldn’t move on from these bizarre creatures because there is just so much going on that is worth talking about. For instance, did you know that dracula ants are the fastest animal on Earth? Again, kind of. If we’re being pedantic, they hold thew record for the fastest animal action currently known. Those jaws that I told you to look out for, can swing shut at an extraordinary 90 metres per second. That’s 201 miles an hour. That’s probably overkill for an ant, but here we are. How do they do it? Well, push your thumb and index finger together really hard. Then let one slide over the over. They fly past each other at some lick, don’t they? The ants do the same with their mandibles.

So, two quirks of evolution for the price of one. No news yet on whether they are related to one another, so, and I cannot stress this enough to any athletes out there, do notary and harvest your children in an attempt to become faster. I’ve heard of blood doping, but that is just a step too far.