Trap-jaw ants fastest boxers ever recorded: study

Boxer Muhammad Ali famously declared his intent to "float like a butterfly and sting like a bee," but perhaps boxers should look to another type of insect for inspiration: the trap-jaw ant.
Scientists have found that a species of trap-jaw ants can box their opponents at a blazing-fast speed of 41.5 strikes per second, making them the fastest boxers ever recorded.
In a new study, researchers at the University of Illinois and North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences measured the speed at which different species of trap-jaw ants strike one another during antenna-boxing bouts.
Understanding such fights for dominance within ant colonies can shed light on ant behaviour and sociology.

"All social animals exhibit dominance behaviours of one kind or another," said Andrew Suarez, professor at University of Illinois.
"In the case of social insects, we often focus on their chemical communication system, but in these ants the antennal boxing was too remarkable to ignore," Suarez said.

Like bees, ants have a hierarchy of roles within the colony. Trap-jaw ant species engage in antennal "boxing," a quick fight involving striking one another with their antennae, to determine which of the worker ants stay in the nest and which go out to forage, said undergraduate researcher Sean O'Fallon.
To better understand this behaviour, the researchers used high-speed cameras to record antenna-boxing matches in four species of trap-jaw ants. They then counted how rapidly each species pummelled their opponents.

The speeds ranged from 19.5 strikes per second for Odontomachus rixosus, hailing from Cambodia, to a blazing-fast 41.5 strikes per second for Odontomachus brunneus, native to Florida, the researchers found.
"Trap-jaw ants are the fastest boxers ever recorded," said former postdoctoral researcher Adrian Smith, now a professor at North Carolina State University.
"Describing how fast multiple species box each other helps us understand how this behaviour evolves. For instance, we found that when one species uses boxing as a form of aggression, the behaviour is indistinguishable from boxing as a social dominance interaction between colony members," Smith said.
The study was published in the journal Insectes Sociaux.