SUGAR ants may be doing their bit for their environment by indulging their taste for urine, according to new research.
A study by the University of South Australia found the ants actually preferred urine to sugar and their taste for it could play a role in reducing greenhouse gases.
Led by wildlife ecologist Associate Professor Topa Petit, researchers learned sugar ants nocturnally foraged for pee to extract nitrogen molecules.
If not for the ants, those molecules may have ended up in greenhouse gases.
The Kangaroo Island based team found the ants were attracted to higher concentrations of urea, mining them for long periods from dry sand.
This marked the first time ants had been observed mining dry urine from sand for a long periods of time.
Associate Professor Petit said findings could play a role in nitrogen cycling.
"When I first noticed the ants swarming to scavenge urine, it was purely by accident," she said.
"But under research conditions we found that the ants determinedly mined urea patches night after night with greater numbers of ants drawn to higher urea concentrations."
She said a bacterium in the digestive tract of sugar ants allowed them to process urea in order to get nitrogen for protein.
Associate Professor Petit said the discovery suggested the ants might reduce the release of ammonia from urine, which led to the production of nitrous oxide.
Nitrous oxide is 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The past decade has seen a substantial increase in emissions, mostly due to the widespread use of fertilisers.
"This is not the last we will hear about these sugar ants - they could open up a whole new field of research," she said.
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