Quora User Learns That Ants Can Scream

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mattstaff
Apr 25, 2020 8:00 PM EDT

Well, how about that for a trippy Quora rabbit hole. This Quora user asked people if ants could scream? She was convinced after "hearing" them while watering down her patio. 

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  • 01
    Leaf - Susan Campbell, I scream at spiders! Answered Dec 5 Is it normal for ants to scream? Whenever I use water to get them off my patio I hear screeching.
    via quora
  • 02
    Text - Yes, you are hearing ants "screaming". This question intrigued me, so I did my usual –I researched it. Science News, Volume 157, No. 6, February 5, 2000, p. 92. had the following information: the squeak that people can sometimes detect, ....... comes from stridulation. This high-pitched rasping of one surface against another occurs frequently in animals, most famously among cicadas, katydids, and crickets but also catfish and, some scientists argue, sea horses. Ants stridulate with the hi
    via quora
  • 03
    Insect - Pedicel or node(s)
    via quora
  • 04
    Text - made up of segments, one of which bears a ridged patch. Its nearest neighbor sports a file-like rasping widget. The segments remind Ward of the nested tubes of a telescope. "Imagine the meeting edges scratching a bit as they move in and out," he says. Residents of the southwestern United States can hear stridulatory concerts by picking up red desert ants, suggests Ward. In the Northeast, the less common but hefty Myrmica species also squeak audibly when plucked up by a human hand.
    via quora
  • 05
    Text - Ants in four subfamilies stridulate, but others seem silent and don't have recognizable scraping surfaces, Ward notes. Entomologists argue about whether this pattern means stridulation evolved several times in ants or whether the Adam and Eve of ant ancestors rasped to each other but some descendants lost the ability.
    via quora
  • 06
    Face - Further investigation and I found a YouTube video. It is slightly over 3 minutes. Ants make some very weird sounds. Trust me!
    via quora
  • 07
    via Gross Science

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