646
Myrmecology
(sh.itjust.works)
The people that were doing this weren't using concrete...
They were using molten metal.
I always thought it was extremely hot aluminum poured into them.
extremely hot
Melted?
Evaporated?
Gaseous state
plasma
It could be any liquid that hardens later on. I've seen aluminum and concrete.
Yeah, hearing about this technique for the first time was a ride. Like, yeah, it's kind of cool? But also, you're doing a genocide.
Invasive ants can overwhelm and genocide native ants.
A lot of the castings I've seen have specifically been done on invasive ants for this reason.
I wanted to comment on fire ants for this (which are an invasive one). Anyone who has experienced fire ants would not feel sorry for a genocide on them.
It's impossible for fire ants to be invasive in general.
They're invasive to SOMEWHERE. We don't all live in the same neighbourhood.
They are invasive in most places except for a relatively small part of South America
TBH if you live somewhere where fire ants are native, MOVE.
I'm not going to let the ants win.
The way I understood it, invasive simply meant a species that grows and spreads at an aggressive speed in an ecosystem that it did not originate from. Fire ants very much match this definition as they were introduced outside of south Africa into several ecosystems where they spread at an aggressive rate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/100_of_the_World%27s_Worst_Invasive_Alien_Species has a nice list of examples of species that are simply classified as invasive. Fire ants are on the top 100 list there.
That being said, while fire ants are not invasive to South Africa technically, this can be said about all species in the world (that they're not invasive to SOMEWHERE). I didn't feel the need to say where I was located in my message since it felt redundant, and as the term invasive should be assumed to talk about how whatever it is, is invasive to somewhere else, wherever that is.
Classic US defaultism. They often have problems understanding the concept of the world wide web.
Invasive fire ants aren't just a US problem. They're one of the worst invasive species in the world.
They also never said anything that would suggest they were talking globally. They just said they were an invasive species of ants.
If you zoom out a little and look at the phrasing more than the ant problem, it is classic us defaultism. You can read it all the time here. Maybe you haven't noticed it, if you're from the US yourself.
But sentences like "don't replace your grass lawn with cloverleaf, it's invasive" can be expected like clockwork.
The european honey bee is also quite often given this title.
Not talking globally
Everyone is constantly talking globally, except US Americans. If I mention something local to me, I always preface that. As do all other participants of the internet. Except for ... you know
We don't all live in the same neighbourhood.
My immersion is ruined.
you're doing a genocide
Yes, if you are dumb about it. Actual scientists doing this use abandoned colonies or move the colony first.
Fire ants deserve it. Fuck em.
Hmm, would this work with any clear material so you could see the ants as they suffer? I mean, for uhhh... science?
You'd pick up a lot of sand... Normally you'd use a metal like aluminum. You can sandblast that clean.
But clear means epoxy. That stuff doesn't hold up very well under sandblasting. It can be done, but expect mistakes.
"Normally"!? I thought it was a one-time thing for that famous youtube video.
There are thousands of ant hill sculptures in the world.
The two main ways of making them are either aluminum or some sort of concrete or plaster.
Aluminum is used more often, due to the ease of extraction from the ground, and the fact that you can clean it with a garden hose or pressure washer.
Cement or plaster are used when accuracy is desired, but those sculptures need to be removed from the ground with hand trowels and brushes, and will likely need individual parts to be reinforced or braced to prevent breakage.
Both methods can be used to study the structure of and ant hill. But aluminum far more common for the more artistic versions of the sculpture.
Aluminum is great because it has a relatively low melting point, and a casting furnace isn't all that expensive.
you can never see them "suffer"
"Ants are not subjected to feeling the same pain humans do. They can recognize damage and respond to it, but they don't genuinely feel pain the same way people do"
Couldn't you apply that logic to literally all animals including humans? Pain is just a sensation to make us respond to damage, the suffering part is entierly subjective and no one can be sure any of the other humans even are capable of it, we just assume its the case based on personal experience and empathy.
Nature is very cruel, but not so evil to evolve suffering in animals who don't have the capacity to learn from it.
Pain and pleasure are the greatest survival teachers, I’d expect them to be the basest feelings a living thing can have.
Saying some creatures don’t feel pain just because their physiology is different is like how we were taught that animals couldn’t think back in the 20th century.
"Survival of the fittest" is about a species, not an individual. For larger animals pain and pleasure are the greatest teachers, because we can learn from those. These species benefit from individuals learning survival skills. Insects have no use for it, they don't learn to adapt, they survive through numbers, their behavior adapts through evolution.
They react to damage the same way plants do. If you want to call that pain, sure. It doesn't make sense evolutionary that they would suffer from it though.
And we know it's not inherent to life. Even some people are born without nociceptors because of genetic issues. Not-suffering is a big problem, kids get infections etc because they don't learn to stop hurting themselves.
We found “strong evidence” for pain experiences in adults of two orders, Diptera (flies and mosquitoes) and Blattodea (cockroaches and termites). There was also “substantial evidence” in adult Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, ants, and sawflies), Orthoptera (crickets and grasshoppers), and Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) [...]
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0065280622000170
What are you quoting?
some article i looked up
When you quote things, provide attribution to what you are quoting. “Otherwise you just look insane.”
maybe "i am"
Could be worse. Could be the guy filling them with copper or whatever molten metal it was on YT.
I would probably prefer getting almost instantly fried by molten hot metal than slowly suffucate in liquid cement
I think I remember that setting concrete has an exothermic reaction going on so you could be cooked as you suffocate.
I suspect the amount of the nest that gets affected is larger. (Technically, IIRC theyre mostly there to exterminate the ants, it’s just becoming art in the process.!
Probably a different instance to the one you're thinking, but I have not forgotten that TechRax video of him pouring molten aluminum onto live hissing cockroaches. I don't even know why he added the cockroaches, the subject of the video was the iPhone 6 vs molten aluminum.
Oh yea, I still remember that one, I hate cockroaches, but that video kinda disgusted me. Like... why torture other living things for nothing?
That’s horrifying, what the actual fuck.
I think I was These guys. Could be wrong, but part of what they’re doing is removing nests that are problematic to humans (or our cattle.)
I wouldn't think concrete is thin or viscous enough
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2025
646 points (100.0% liked)
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