An Approach to Observing and Quantifying Real-Time Mandibular Muscle Topology in the Trap-Jaw Ant Odontomachus monticola
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An Approach to Observing and Quantifying Real-Time Mandibular Muscle Topology in the Trap-Jaw Ant Odontomachus monticola by Synchrotron Imaging Zixin Wang & Wei Zhang & Jianing Wu & Yunqiang Yang
Received: 1 April 2020 / Revised: 5 September 2020 / Accepted: 13 October 2020 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The ant Odontomachus monticola has a pair of elongated mandibles that can manipulate a variety of objects including food, brood and nestmates. Anatomical and theoretical studies indicate that different tasks may require modification of mandible speed and force which is achieved by modulating the respective activity of three sets of muscles. Despite the advanced investigations on how muscles separately control the mandible movements in trap-jaw ants, real-time visualization of the muscle activity has remained elusive. In this investigation, we developed an approach based on the synchrotron imaging technique to elucidate the real-time topology of the muscles in the head of the ant. Using synchrotron imaging, we described the topology of the living ant’s mandible muscles and calculated area changes in the intracranial muscles, which reflected the respective muscle’s activities in the strike of mandibles. This study provides the first visualization evidence which validates that the mandible strike is facilitated
Zixin Wang and Wei Zhang contributed equally to this work. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007 /s10905-020-09759-5. Z. Wang : Y. Yang (*) School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, People’s Republic of China e-mail: [email protected] W. Zhang : J. Wu School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou 510006, People’s Republic of China
by the contraction of adductor muscles, without the activation of abductor muscles. Keywords Ant . mandible . synchrotron imaging . muscular activation
Introduction Mandibles are important to ants, like hands to a human (Gronenberg et al. 1997), which help them adapt to a variety of tasks such as manipulating objects including food and liquid, brood and nest mates (Ávila Núñez et al. 2011; Just and Gronenberg 1999), defending themselves, catching prey (Dejean et al. 2012; Gronenberg 1996b; Gronenberg and Tautz 1994), and escaping from enemies (Larabee and Suarez 2015; Patek et al. 2006). Therefore, some small animals like ants have evolved very rapid movements in order to escape from predators or to catch fast prey (Gronenberg 1996a). Ant mandibles and their accessory structures form a mechanism that can generate a wide range of movements (Paul 2001). Mandibles of certain ant species are grippers that can output a wide range of forces as needed for various tasks (Hölldobler and Wilson 1990; Zhang et al. 2020). In addition, trap-jaw ants have evolved a special mechanism to strike mandibles at an ultra-high speed (Gronenberg 1995a, 1996b). The trap-jaw ant Odontomachus is equipped with a pair
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