A professional python hunter in Florida needed assistance from family members to uncoil a giant Burmese python from his body and to ultimately subdue the second-heaviest python ever caught in Florida.

Ants coordinate highly complex foraging and traffic systems without any leaders, relying entirely on local interactions and chemical cues. Pheromone trails encode information about distance, food ...

Some baby ants don’t ask for help when they contract deadly infections — they ask to be killed. Terminally ill worker ant pupae actively emit a “find me and destroy me” chemical signal, prompting ...

Scientists describe the behavior as "altruistic signalling," a form of social immunity in eusocial insects Getty A new research study finds infected ant pupae emit a chemical signal that prompts ...

The trade-off between quality and quantity is a fundamental economic dilemma. Now, a team of British, American, and Japanese researchers describes how it applies to biology, as well. They have ...

"And it looks like ants have been doing this for millions of years." While not the primary focus of the paper, the team found that nearly all of the ant species tested killed an emerging human ...

This repository implements several swarm optimization algorithms and visualizes them. Implemented algorithms: Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Firefly Algorithm (FA), Cuckoo Search (CS), Ant Colony ...

"By warning the colony of their deadly infection, terminally ill ants help the colony remain healthy and produce daughter colonies, which indirectly pass on the signaler’s genes to the next generation ...

Illness usually brings trouble in the animal world. A weak member may be pushed aside, attacked, or left behind. Many animals go to great lengths to hide sickness. But for creatures bound by family, ...

Ant pupae that are fatally sick don’t hide their condition; instead, they release a special scent that warns the rest of the colony. This signal prompts worker ants to open the pupae’s cocoons and ...

Sick young ants release a smell to tell worker ants to destroy them to protect the colony from infection, scientists said Tuesday, adding that queens do not seem to commit this act of self-sacrifice.