SCIENCE LAB SCENICS : VERY CULTURED [PART 2]

THEN her grandmother said, '' Oh, do you know that I used to use ants ........? ''

A network of biologists who had developed an interest in the ant yogurt, including Dr, Jahn, eventually met Ms. Mutlu Sirakova, who arranged for a small team to visit her village and attempt to recreate the original recipe.

Ms. Mutlu Sirakova's uncle gave the researchers a crash course in ant yogurt making. The team took four red wood ants and dropped them in a container of warm milk. They then sealed the container,  buried it in the ant hill, and left it there overnight.

The next day, the researchers removed the insects from the partly coagulated concoction and gave it a taste. It '' had a slightly tangy taste with wid herbaceousness and pronounced flavours of grass-fed fat,'' according to the research paper.

Back in the lab, Dr. Jahn still wanted to know what it was about the ants that caused this fermentation.  She and her team recreated the yogurt-making process using a similar species of wood ant found in Denmark and conducted a variety of chemical analyses.

They determined that the ants contributed acids and enzymes that worked together to coagulate the milk.

These include formic acid, which the ants produce as a defense mechanism, and strains of lactic and acetic acids produced by bacteria living in the ants' guts.

And once the ants start the yogurt culture, more yogurt can be created by adding more milk - no need for more insects.

The World Students Society thanks Kete Golembiewski.