Oh Snap: Trap-Jaw Ants Jump with Their Legs, Too

A species of trap-jaw ant, Odontomachus rixosus, has been found to exhibit a previously unseen jumping behavior, using its legs rather than its powerful jaws. The discovery identifies O. rixosus as the only ant species that can jump with either its legs or its mandibles.

(Image credit: D. Magdalena Sorger)

Trap-jaw ants are known for using their powerful jaws to launch themselves into the air, somersaulting several times their own body length to evade predators. But some of these ants have another trick in their escape arsenal. Scientists recently discovered a trap-jaw species that leaps with its legs, a behavior that is extremely rare in ants and previously unknown in the trap-jaw family. Talk about getting a jump on the competition.

Magdalena Sorger of North Carolina State University and author of the study describing this unusual behavior, was collecting trap-jaw ants in Borneo with a field assistant in 2012, when they noticed something "extremely strange," she told Live Science. [Watch Trap-Jaw Ants Show Rare Jumping Ability]

Latest Videos From

Watch full video here:

Other ant species employ equally novel solutions for getting around. Wingless tropical ants drop from their tree habitats when threatened, using their hind legs as rudders to help them glide to safety. Some ant species are swimmers, while some ford watery obstacles by linking their legs to form living rafts and bridges. Still others can "limbo," navigating under low-hanging barriers without losing speed.

Sorger found that touching the ants' legs induced jumping. Some of those were jaw jumps, but most of the time they were jumping with their legs. And Sorger observed that leg-jumping had clear advantages. The jaw jumps, while swift and powerful, were difficult for the ants to control. The motion typically propels the ants backward, flipping them upside-down and requiring a moment of recovery time, which could be critical in escaping a hungry predator, she said.

Even among the other groups of ants that jump with their legs, the trap-jaw jumpers stand out. While all the leg-jumpers — including the trap-jaws — are solitary hunters, the three previously known groups share one feature that trap-jaws lack: large eyes. Sorger pointed out to Live Science that the other ant groups use their jumps to capture prey, which would require superior vision, but she did not observe the trap-jaw species jumping forward to hunt. "They go under the leaves, and you can hear them catch prey — it's a little snap — but you can't see them," Sorger explained. She suggested that perhaps the trap-jaws' mandibles were enough of a hunting advantage, so it didn't require the visual capabilities of its smaller-jawed cousins.

Mindy Weisberger is a science journalist and author of "Rise of the Zombie Bugs: The Surprising Science of Parasitic Mind-Control" (Hopkins Press). She formerly edited for Scholastic and was a channel editor and senior writer for Live Science. She has reported on general science, covering climate change, paleontology, biology and space. Mindy studied film at Columbia University; prior to LS, she produced, wrote and directed media for the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. Her videos about dinosaurs, astrophysics, biodiversity and evolution appear in museums and science centers worldwide, earning awards such as the CINE Golden Eagle and the Communicator Award of Excellence. Her writing has also appeared in Scientific American, The Washington Post, How It Works Magazine and CNN.