Gold-Coated Ant Wields Microcog

(Image: Manfred Kage/Science Photo Library)

DON’T fear, ants haven’t started constructing micromachines, though I wouldn’t put it past them. Perhaps the most impressive of all insects - no mean feat when there are some 3 million species - ants construct peerless, air-conditioned homes, tend fungus gardens underground and perhaps even farm other insects for meat. Their societies are among the biggest and most complex on Earth, their military prowess formidable, and their strength-to-weight ratio legendary.

This one, however, is dead. To image biological material in a scanning electron microscope it must be freeze-dried so it doesn’t rupture in the vacuum of the instrument. Specimens must also be electrically conductive, otherwise the intense beam of electrons hitting it will build up an electric charge. This means that non-metallic objects have to be coated in a thin film of metal, often gold.

To be sealed in an armour of gold after death - well, it isn’t a bad way to go. It seems particularly fitting for an animal that can learn to adapt its behaviour when necessary, will sacrifice itself for its nest mates, and forms the largest cooperative unit ever recorded.

Ants haven’t yet been recorded manipulating micromechanical cogs, however - except in stunts set up by cunning electron microscope technicians.