4 years ago
It’s ‘nature’s sports drink’: Ants live off urine on dry Australian island
Wildlife ecologist Sophie Petit was camping on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island one night in 2016, when she noticed something unusual: sugar ants swarming a spot in the sand where she had urinated a couple of hours earlier. To her wonder, the ants came back, night after night, seeking more pee. Now, 3 years later, Petit has found that the insects crave the urine of people, kangaroos, and other animals, likely to survive the island’s nutrient-scarce environment. They even prefer it to sugar water.
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https://www.sciencemag.org
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