The remarkable abilities of baby ants

Instead of hairs, some ant larvae have a sound-producing organ that allows them to communicate. Karsten Schonrogge from the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, UK found that, once the outer shell of some Myrmica ant pupae toughens, a specialised organ forms to allow them to make calls. Older ants typically use chemical signals to communicate, but the researchers think that the tough outer skin of pupae may block the secretion of pheromones, encouraging them to resort to sound in order to communicate. Rubbing noises seem to convey a high social status since larvae that belong to a lower class are mute.

Larval behaviour may be even more bizarre than their little-known physical features. For example, they often act as "communal stomachs" . Adults have such a thin waist that they can only consume fluids. Larvae eat insects on behalf of the adults and then produce a protein-rich liquid for their elders to eat.

Workers produce eggs that look identical to the queen's eggs, so Ebie and her team initially suspected that a chemical marker on the queen's eggs helped make the distinction clear and encourage the worker ants to stop laying their own eggs. "We were surprised to find that it wasn't the eggs," says Ebie. "Larvae were in fact delaying worker reproduction."

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170405-baby-ants-have-a-host-of-unexpected-superpowers