By Susan Milius
New videos of ants fixing an entrée of fruit fly stew show that it’s the youngsters who do the colony’s version of cooking. What’s more, they don’t nibble as they cook but wait to be served their fair share.
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Ants prepare their meat not by heating but by marinating it with digestive enzymes to create a glistening protein slurry. With their hourglass figures, adult ants have such tiny waists that solid food can’t pass through to their abdomens. Biologists already knew that the blob-shaped larvae predigest meat. Some scientists had suggested that the adults feed meat to the larvae and return later for some regurgitated protein slurry.