Sunday, 3 July 2011

The first non-human meat farmers

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20630-zoologger-the-first-nonhuman-meat-farmers.html

If biologists' best guess proves correct, these ants raise their insect herds for meat, not milk – the first example of meat farmers other than humans. And that's not all. The insects they cultivate may be the best example of true domestication outside of our crop plants.
You have to know what you're looking for to even see Melissotarsus. The ants – barely 3 millimetres long – live most of their lives within the intricate gallery systems they excavate in and under the bark of trees. They're such committed burrowers that their second pair of legs points up, not down, so they can get a foothold in the tunnel roof as well as the floor. They share their galleries with several species of armoured scale insects, so-called because most species secrete a tough, waxy scale that covers and protects them.



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