Street ants of New York love human-like junk food

#junkfood #trafficisland #manhattan #sidewalks A latest study has found that urban ants in New York love junk food just as the humans do. The diet of these ants is rich in junk food as has been revealed by tests carried out on insects that have been collected from pavements and traffic islands in Manhattan.
The tests show that their bodies contain the molecular fingerprint of junk food. However, this does not hold true when compared with the more genteel ants that frequent leafy park areas.
The research has been conducted by North Carolina State University and reported in news.sky.com dated 1 April 2015.

In the opinion of lead researcher Dr Clint Penick, food consumed by human go to make up a significant portion of the diet in the urban species. These ants eat the city garbage, and this could be a reason of why the pavement ants achieve such large populations in cities.
In order to conduct the study, the scientists had tested over 100 ants representing 21 species from dozens of sites in New York’s sidewalks, streets and parks. The assessment of their diet was done by analyzing the kind of carbon present in their bodies. This provides an indication of the type of food ingested.
The logic is that all animals, including humans, take in carbon from food, however, the particular strain found in the pavement ants was specifically associated with corn and sugar cane. These products are abundant in human processed foods because these are used as sweeteners or to enhance the flavor of the fast foods.

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