People can try anting too. Do you want to try and report back to HN with your findings?

Here a Finnish teenager demostrates anting challenge. The video is a report itself.

https://youtu.be/iHqPmafs3gk

Before cosmetics were available, some people stuck their face to an ants nest, I think the theory was that that could help peeling dead skin.

What kind of ants are we talking about here, because I cannot imagine anything good from doing this with a fire ant mound.

This doesn't seem realistic.

Men, most who don't wear cosmetics, don't spontaneously stick their faces against ant hills. The women who don't wear cosmetics, either, don't seem to cover their faces in ants.

Crows (and other animals) are known to learn behaviors from each other, it doesn't need to be genetically encoded

I was answering this comment, "Before cosmetics were available, some people stuck their face to an ants nest, I think the theory was that that could help peeling dead skin," which was not about crow's behaviour - either by nurture or nature.

I can't believe that people are actually taking that comment from the parent seriously. All I can say is that people tend to believe whatever they read.

Yeah I read that, but I take your point. I'm open minded to it, there's an assortment of weird remedies and therapies that humans have engaged in. People are so obsessed with their own appearance and go to great lengths to improve it... I mean people stick their feet in ponds and let fish eat all the dead skin off to exfoliate their feet.. this is something you can pay money for in a number of tourist cities.

I used to use "anting" to refer to the behavior of cyclists who stand on the pedals and don't sit firmly planted on their seats, as if they have ants in their pants.

And then there were "beeing" which are the cyclists who do the above while also rocking the cycle from left to right -- that's more like bees in their pants.