RE: About those Piranha Bugs - LOOOOONG

Beth.Fulton Wrote:

>G'day,

Aee? I told you it would be nice.....

> > I noticed that it was stated that there were numerous mounds
> > of these bugs within proximity to one another,
> > While the bugs themselves are quite
> > believable, I have a problem with this....
>
>This assumes that the nests you see on the surface aren't just
expressions
>of one meta-nest. We may see them as separate colonies, but they may be
>linked underground or be projections of a main nest and so be all
friendly
>together - think of the columns of Army ants and their offshoots when
they
>hit obstacles, each offshoot will look separate, but self recognition 
>allows
>them to join the main column again seamlessly when they meet up again.
So
>you could get away the density shown as the colonists may well perceive

>them
>as separate colonies, but that doesn't mean the bug does ;)

I can't argue with you there.  What I would say is that if this is the
case, 
there's going to be one colony to deal with, not a separate one from
each 
perceived mound, which seemed to be the case in the first description.

> > The more a predator eats, and the more often it
> > has to eat, the larger the territory it tends to
> > try to defend.
>
>Sort of. It has to supply itself yes, so their territories will be
quite
>large if there are many links in the chain before them as 90% of the
energy
>in any one level is lost, with 10% only making it to their predator to
>support them.
>
> > This means that either the country
> > around them is carpeted in prey animals, or they must
> > maintain a fairly large territory.
>
>Or supplement with other behaviour, such as scavenging or farming.

Don't most predators in general tend to supplement predation with 
scavenging?

May well
>be that different cast members have different dietary requirements too
- so
>the "strippers" are the "soldiers" who follow the credo of the best
defence
>is offence, whereas the bulk of the colony is based on eating farmed
fungi
>or wood boring or grazing of vegetation, heck they could even have 
>symbionts
>that allow them to be photo or chemosynthetic. Once again the colonists
may
>not have noticed minor details like that if its hard to do research on
them
>in the first place - all termites from afar can look alike (specks),
but up
>close there can be major differences - thus the many millions seen on
the
>nests may not all be "strippers".

There'd still be a top end to the mass of bugs sustainable in a given
area, 
wouldn't there be?

>Alternatively the mounds may only be temporarily inhabited, the Piranha

>Bugs
>may stay permanently on the move like Army Ants which do number in the
>millions and can strip a horse. So the Piranha Bugs may move from mound
>complex to mound complex as they strip whatever is in their path.

True enough, and very likely.  But it still suggests that there aren't
going 
to be multiple mounds each with it's own high population of bugs within
one 
area.  That's the impression I got from the first description, and the
one 
with which I took most issue.

>Yet another alternative is that the Piranha Bugs are actually just one 
>stage
>in the life cycle (so sort of the same argument as above, but a life
stage
>not a caste), and once they've "eaten their full" so to speak they 
>reproduce
>and die. Thus relieving pressure on the local surrounds until that life
>stage is reached again.

True, but this still would support the concept of a highly territorial
bug, 
since they're STILL not going to want other colonies around during the 
development of the next stage of bugs....

>Yet another alternative is that the ants take the opportunity of the
food
>presenting itself to do a raid and save them the effort of going to get
it 
>-
>much the same way as Army ants will forgoe their dawn raid if a large
food
>source presents itself at the door of their bivouac.

I like this.  Like you, I see them more as flying army ants than as
beeish 
animals.  But I still think there's got to be a limit to the number of
them 
that any given area can sustain....

>
>OK better stop now before I go through too many alternatives and make
you
>want to release said bugs on me ;)

Don't stop now, the more you suggest, the more cool ideas I get for
future 
use. :-)

Brian

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