Ants on Drugs

1. SUMMARY OF PROCEDURE 1. Put non drugged ants in the controlled environment. 2. Observed control ants behavior. 3. Dissolved 4 different drugs into water. 4. Isolated 4 different groups of 3 ants per group into the dissolved solutions. 5. Left ants in solution over night. 6. Tested the first group of ants reactions to Advil. Tested second group of ants reactions to liquid Ibuprofen. Tested third group’s reaction to Tylenol Tested fourth groups reactions to Melatonin. HYPOTHESIS Q - will ants have the same reactions to certain drugs that humans do? Our hypothesis is that ants will have the same reactions as humans do if we give them the correct amounts of each drug. We predict that ants will have the same reactions to Advil, Ibuprofen, Tylenol, and melatonin as humans do. Ants on Drugs • VARIABLES • Controls – • 3 ants per group • limited recording time (2 minutes) • ants left in solution over night • Independent Variables • ants • timed trials • the environment • Dependent Variables • drugs (Advil, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, • Melatonin) • ants reactions • RESULTS • All the ants that were given Advil died before we could test their reactions. • All of the ant that were given liquid ibuprofen seemed to act somewhat normal just walked around at a slow pace and didn’t do much. The only odd observation was that they had some weird obsession with climbing the walls. • All the ants that were given Tylenol were acting strange, they ran around in circles and ran into the walls repeatedly. • Ants that were given melatonin seemed dead wile they were in the Petri dish but when the id was lifted off they “woke up” and were extremely violent, they were biting everything and running around franticly. ANTS Harvester ants are small in size and their colony is generally made up of workers. These ants are omnivores, harvesting plants and scavenging insects. DRUGS Advil and ibuprofen are both drugs that are designed to relieve pain, swelling, stiffness and tenderness. Neither drug is generally powerful enough to cause humans to act strangely. Melatonin is a medicine prescribed to aid in sleep; it is also a hormone that eases the mind into a deep, quick sleep. Tylenol is used to relieve mild pain from various causes. It works by cooling the body, which affects how the body detects pain. PURPOSE The purpose of this experiment is to observe and record the affect of common drugs on ants. By first recording a group of ants’ movement without drugs, we then compared the other groups of ants that had been dosed with the drugs. Through a video we traced movements of the ants and put it on a graph, and compared the ants reactions to how humans are generally known to react. CONCLUSION The purpose of this lab was to see ants reactions to the drugs Tylenol, Advil, Ibuprofen, and Melatonin and determine weather or not the reactions were similar to humans reactions to these drugs. Our overall errors were one over dosage of the ants we tested Advil on and we had to re-tape the sides of the environment. In the end we determined the ants reactions to these drugs were somewhat similar.