Like many insects, ants are well adapted to living on plants with smooth leaf and stem surfaces. They are able to attach to smooth substrates with a soft and movable cuticle pad of the pretarsus, the arolium.
The biomechanics of insect adhesion are still poorly understood. Some insects can produce adhesive forces equivalent to more than 100 times their own body weight on perfectly smooth surfaces. Both the physical mechanism of adhesion and the mechanism of how insects can apparently control their adhesive force when they walk with such "sticky feet" are still unknown.
I will present studies on the arolium of Asian Weaver ants, Oecophylla smaragdina, and experiments addressing its adhesive mechanism.
The ESA 2001 Annual Meeting - 2001: An Entomological Odyssey of ESA