Opossums aren't the only animals that play dead - turns out that
fire ants do it too: When threatened by danger, the young
insects will play dead to fake out an attacker. "No one has ever
reported this before, and it was a big shock to me," said Deby
Cassill, an evolutionary biologist at the University of South
Florida St. Petersburg. "Ants from an attacking colony will come
up to inspect them, and they'll be curled up just like a dead
ant. Then moments later they uncurl and walk away." Cassill and
her students also noticed that as the ants age — some live six
months to a year — they grow out of the curious behavior.
Middle-aged ants tend to flee, while the eldest are aggressive
and attack furiously. "All worker ants are sterile females, so
it's the cranky old ladies who are the ones fighting to the
death," Cassill said. We all should know better than messing
with cranky old ladies: Link (photo: Scott Bauer)