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For a love story, this one might not lead to a happy ending. But hours before it even began, as the rising sun warmed the bricks of PC’s Aquinas Hall, there was a flurry of excitement among all the sisters, and especially so for two of them. With a passing embrace, and a quick hug as they reached out to one another, they quickly ran up and out. Dewdrops glistened on the moss just outside their door, each of the sisters hungry and ready to explore, but separately.
Their brief connection this morning was tender, mostly a quick check-in that everything was okay. But the night before, they’d shared a connection so long that it was literally nourishing. After a long day of tending to their tasks, with just a few taps to each other’s foreheads, face to face as their busy sisters ran by in every direction, they opened wide, tilted their heads ever so slightly, and they exchanged a pristine nectar directly, mouth to mouth. As they gave and received, continuing to share a tap every so often, their bodies stood solid, one contracting, one swelling. And this lasted until they broke it off, leaving again in different directions, not to speak or even see each other again for the whole night.
The next day, as they were out and busy with their sisters, there was so much to see, smell, and do. They bumped into neighbors, quickly tapping each other to make sure they were friendly and that their moms were cool. They passed armored runners in bright red, as they went running themselves, following cracks in the pavement, wellknown scents, always in a line. They ran alone and in small groups, sometimes lucky enough to carry something tasty home, sometimes returning empty-handed, but always following well-trodden paths. Home was unassuming from afar, but inside it was a crowded and chaotic place, stretching for meters across and just below the foundation of a few buildings on campus.
When they ran into each other later that night something strange and unexpected happened. It started out just like any other encounter, but as they stood facing one another, there was an electric tension in the air. It all happened so fast as she felt the stroke of a hair on her head rubbed by her sister, and then one on the other side too. She graced her left side and then her right, again and again. It was simultaneously the gentlest and deliberate of touches, ritualistic, but fast. In the blink of an eye, she’d been caressed dozens of times. And as good as it felt, she didn’t simply stop and receive. She reached forward as well, caressing her sister’s shoulder on the left, then the right, slipping sometimes and sliding down the side of her face. For an instant in time, both rhythmically and intentionally embraced each other, fifty times faster and lasting ten times longer than any normal encounter they’d ever shared before. And just like that, seconds later, sensory neurons firing in tandem, they separated, running off just as fast as they’d joined each other moments before. They ran in different directions, more encounters ahead, the pulse of the colony beating strong.
Diraliz Cruz (Providence College ’23) named the behavior described above as an ant “vibe-check.” When video-recorded at 10,000 frames per second and reviewed in slow motion, it is stunning how gracefully the pair of ants engaged in a vibe-check with their antennae. Students in our lab at Providence College have been studying these high-frequency interactions as exhibited by nestmates within needle ant colonies, Brachyponera chinensis. These interactions are remarkably distinct from most other kinds of encounters between ants, including typically brief antennal contacts and the longer nutrient exchanges called trophallaxis. We don’t yet know what role the vibecheck plays in the social organization of the colonies, if any, but it is a beautiful sight to see if you can catch it.
Illustration by Danika Valentine. Follow Dr. Jane and her research lab on Instagram @antlabpvd or on the web www. lovetheants.org. •