As if Florida’s“skull - collecting ” antsweren’t terrifying enough , we ’re now going to be having nightmares about Dracula ant . A newstudyin the journalRoyal Society Open Sciencereveals that a species of Dracula emmet ( Mystrium camillae ) , which is find in Australia and Southeast Asia , can snap its jaws shut at speed of 90 metre per 2nd — or the rough equivalent of 200 miles per hour . This make their jaw the fastest part of any beast on the planet , researchers enunciate in astatement .
These finding amount from a team of three researchers that includes Adrian Smith , who has also study the gruesome ways that the skull - collecting pismire ( Formica archboldi ) dismember trap - jaw ants , which were previously considered to be the fastest pismire on record . But with jaw speeds of just over 100 miles per minute , they ’re no match for this Dracula ant . ( Fun fact : The Dracula emmet subfamily isnamed aftertheir habit of drinking the profligate of their vernal through a unconscious process hollo " nondestructive cannibalism . " Yikes . )
aged author Andrew Suarez , of the University of Illinois , said the anatomy of this Dracula ant ’s jaw is strange . Instead of closing their jaws from an opened stead , which is what trap - jaw ants do , they use a spring - loading technique . The ant “ press the tips of their submaxilla together to build likely energy that is relinquish when one lower jaw slew across the other , similar to a human digit snap , ” researcherswrite .
They use this maneuver to smell other arthropod or crusade them aside . Once they ’re out , they can be hale back to the Dracula ant ’s nest , where the ill-omened victim will be run to Dracula ant larvae , Suarez said .
researcher used X - ray tomography to respect the ants ’ anatomy in three dimensions . High - speed cameras were also used to memorialize their jaws snapping at singular speeds , which mensurate 5000 times quicker than the nictation of a human eye . Check out the ants in boring - motion in the video recording below .
