There is a history in Turkey, Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia of making yoghurt with ant nest #microbiomes, either by leaving the starter in an ants' nest or by adding some ants directly. Some researchers recreated the practice by adding some #Formicarufa ants to milk and then characterised the cultures that were produced.

Paywallked summary in New Scientist here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2450495-ants-can-be-used-to-make-yogurt-and-now-we-know-how-it-works/

Preprint on biorxiv here https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.09.16.613207v1.full.pdf

#fermentation #WildFermentation #hymenoptera