Originally Posted by Jens

Actually, the original title is cute. My initial thought was, aren't the ants embarassed if you watch them while they're changing?

Originally Posted by mugaliens

Good point, so there doesn't seem to be a direct connection between behaviors from the more scurrying survivors.

However, the female (queen) they feed, does produce offspring. In high doses the compound kills the queen, hence the colony. In lower doses, it probably affects genetic expression to one degree or another, as do many toxic chemicals. Whether this results in changed behavior (like scurrying) remains to be seen. However, if a queen produces more scurriers, regardless of the method, that colony will be more likely to survive than its more stalwart competitors.

It's still a marked change in behavior between successive generations.

BD: Have you reported this to your local university? They may be interested in studying this phenomenon.

Originally Posted by publiusr

I think it was here or in the starshipmodeler.net forum where I learned that certain types of rat poison is just blood thinner, based on a woman who tried to kill hereself with it.

Originally Posted by Jens

True, but it's the other way around. It's a fairly famous story, I think, that warfarin (the blood thinner) was "discovered" when someone tried to commit suicide using rat poison (IIRC it was a man, maybe a sailor, but I could be wrong). The patient wasn't successful, but ended up bleeding a lot, and some smart doctor realized the stuff had potential. So it's really that certain blood thinners are just rat poison.

Originally Posted by publiusr

That might be. But the case history was from "Dr. Whopper" who talked about a woman.