Lazy ants sit around doing nothing while their nest mates work

Cheer up, lazy bones, you are not alone, even hard-working ant societies have workers that don't quite pull their weight.

"It's just the sort of a thing that anyone who's ever worked on social insects has noticed: 'Oh look, half of them are standing around doing nothing'," says Daniel Charbonneau from the University of Arizona.

Until now it hasn't been clear whether such worker ants of the Temnothorax rugatulus species from the forests of western North America were consistently inactive or merely taking a break. His study shows that they really do have an idler cast.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...l#.VZtKhekw99C