"He's not dead, he's just... covered in oleic acid..."
Ants have graveyards where they take their dead. Apparently they do this for hygiene reasons :
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140708-corpse-removal-ants-social-animal-survival-science/
But they don't take them there straight away, only after two days when the corpse starts giving off oleic acid. Ants marked with oleic acid are carted off to the graveyard even if they're not dead, but what's weird is that they don't seem to mind very much, and will even take themselves there unassisted. When the acid rubs off, normal services are resumed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPw9dSV6y2c
I have always thought that colloquial use of the phrase "spiritus Liquors" was an apt lens for something of much larger significance; that the composition of the biological stew from which we are composed at any given moment, including that which we are exposed to, shapes our experience of life far more powerfully than many of us would like to accept - that substances from fungal spores to chemical solutions have this kind of power to define what we think we are is both an opportunity, and an ever present danger.
ReplyDelete