As thrilling as an Ant-Man movie scene, researchers have discovered that trap-jaw ants use their mandibles to escape from predators creeping up on them. The jumping ants' spring-loaded jaws are the world's fastest appendages among Earth's animal predators.
The trap-jaw ants' mandibles travel at an incredible 130 feet per second (40 m/s), according to io9. The process is completed in an eye-popping 0.13 milliseconds.
To do their "escape jump," the trap-jaw ants contract their head muscles attached to the long mandibles. Then they use a latch to switch the spring-loaded mandibles to OPEN.
Scientists already knew that the ants used their super-fast jaws to kill or injure prey in mere microseconds. However, now they also know that when the predator becomes prey, it has an escape plan that it activates at an eye-blink speed.
Scientists had previously watched the ants' jumping skills. However, they were uncertain if it was among animal escape mechanisms, let alone if it was effective.
Researchers at the University of Illinois conducted a study to test if the trap-jaw ants indeed use their mighty mouths as a defense mechanism.
They conducted an experiment by putting some trap-jaw ants in a pit full of antlions. Also known as doodlebugs, antlions are dragonfly-like insects.
The ants' first escape route was to run out of the pit, but Plan B was to use their spring-loaded jaws to escape the predators. The tiny bugs' success rate was 15 percent.
Fredrick Larabee, a graduate student at the University of Illinois, observed that sand crumbled under the trap-jaw ants when they tried to run away. The insects dropped to the center of the pit, and then used their super jaws to escape the hungry antlions.
In Phase 2 of their experiment, scientists glued the ants' mandibles shut and then dropped them into the pits. This reduced their "survival rate" by 50 percent, according to UPI.
Larabee explained that the scientists' observations of the trap-jaw ants prove that evolution can produce multipurpose tools. The ants' insect mandibles allow them to capture "fast...prey," but also escape when the predator becomes the prey.
The researchers' findings were recently published in the journal PLOS ONE.