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   kho (kho@shitposter.club)'s status on Friday, 19-Jan-2024 05:58:25 JST kho

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   🚨 ARTHROPOD OF THE DAY 🚨
   
   Ant-nest beetles, which belong to the genus Paussus, are among the most bizarre and fascinating insects in the animal kingdom. By hacking the complex communication systems of ants, the beetles are able to not only live among the colony as royalty but simultaneously prey on its members and trick the ants into raising their young.
   
   Over the past few million years, these beetles have rapidly diversified in response to adopting new ant hosts, in a process known as adaptive radiation. Remarkably, this symbiosis has proved to be among the swiftest and most sophisticated examples of adaptive radiation in the animal kingdom.
   
   Ants communicate with one another through a complex system of stridulation (noise making by rubbing together different parts of their body) combined with chemical messaging. Paussus beetles also stridulate and produce chemicals. Their stridulation may mimic that of their host ants, and the chemicals they secrete from their antennae are powerfully attractive to ants. Somehow, the beetles are able to use these traits to interfere with the ants' own chemical communications and hijack the normal functioning of ant society.