genetic freak super ants

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wormwoodelm
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2020 8:41 pm
Location: Ant hill

genetic freak super ants

Post: # 73750Post wormwoodelm
Sat Sep 12, 2020 9:26 pm

Hey folks, I recently read a research article titled:
Morphine addiction in ants: a new model for self-administration and neurochemical analysis
in which researchers at the University of Scranton got a colony of ants addicted to morphine.
In the same research article, they reference another article titled:
Effects of cocaine on honey bee dance behaviour
Which shows that bees on cocaine overvalue the flowers they collect nectar from. I think ants may display similar neurological responses to cocaine or other drugs.

I would like to know if there are any drugs or hormones specific to ant physiology that would induce something like heightened growth or increased aggression. Ideally, this would be something like steroids or growth hormones. I want to synthesize ant-roids and introduce moderate doses, along with an addictive substance like nicotine, to a colony of exotic ants, ideally something like trap-jaw or driver ants. My aim is to create a colony of roided-out killer ants for the purpose of ridding my house of a rat infestation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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antnest8
Posts: 1438
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2018 2:11 pm
Location: Detroit, MI

Re: genetic freak super ants

Post: # 73765Post antnest8
Mon Sep 14, 2020 9:54 am

I bet with some research you could find some sort of hormone or drug that could change ant behavior to what you described but, I don't know if the rats would be dealt with, you would have to have a colony that would want to nest in your home for one and why on earth would you want aggressive big headed ants where you eat, sleep and work?? I can't think of anything that would get the ants to only attack rats because if they can kill a live rat, then they could seriously harm you too.


Finally there are also questions on ethics. I'm not going to go super deep into this or tell you what is right or wrong because this debate has been going on since forever, but some people would consider this as some sort of animal abuse. Giving a colony of ants drugs to turn them into killing machines (and probably killing many colonies in the process since it would take a lot of tests to get it right)
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