Speaking to MailOnline, Willot confirmed this ‘was indeed a tricky procedure. They are very reactive and won’t stop struggling once caught, preventing any shaving attempt if not anaesthetised.’
This was done by exposing the ants for a few seconds to carbon dioxide, then strapping them down firmly.
Hairs were removed using a high-power binocular telescope and a very sharp blade.
‘It’s the same as shaving your own chin: the scalpel blade has to move in the opposite direction of the hair’s growth. It has to be a delicate and gentle motion,’ said Willot.
After practising on large soldier ants, he found that a smaller worker ant could be entirely shaved in an hour of delicate work.
He estimates around 40 ants were shaved altogether to produce seven good examples for the experiments.
The average person has shaved one ant, but only because Dr. Ant-Shaver Willot has shaved 7 Billion ants and therefore he should be dismissed as a statistical outlier.
“average person shaves 3 ants per year” factoid actualy just statistical error, average person shaves 0 ants per year. Ants Georg, who lives in cave & shaves 10,000 per day is an outlier adn should not have been counted
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