The social structure of ants cannot but amaze: not only are there females, males, and workers among them, but there are also species that contain slaves in their nest, who, being larvae, were taken captive from another anthill. True, these slaves perform the same functions that they would do in their nest, only they take care of the descendants of a foreign species, not their own.
Despite the fact that absolutely all types of ants are predators, they not only catch or pick up prey, but also grow mushrooms, keep livestock, which is aphid, and are the only creatures in the world, with the exception of humans, conducting agricultural activities.
Black, red, red ants belong to a family of insects that belongs to the superfamily Antidae from the order Hymenoptera, which also includes wasps, bees, ichneumon wasps, sawflies and gall moths. In total, there are more than 13 thousand species of ants, most of which live in tropical latitudes (for comparison: 1,150 species live in the Palearctic, about three hundred in Russia).
The number of this family, according to various sources, ranges from 10 to 25% of the biomass of all terrestrial creatures. True, their weight is extremely small. For example, in the Amazon forests there are 800 million ants per square kilometer, while in total all forest ants weigh half as much as the rest of the inhabitants of the area.
Red, black and red ants are distributed throughout the world. It is worth noting that not only forest and garden ants, but ants in the house are a common occurrence. They are not found except in cold Antarctica and several islands located far from the continent.
Insects build anthills wherever they can, using mainly soil and plants for construction. Their nests can be seen everywhere: on the ground, under stones, in logs, underground; if they happen to settle in a house, they can build an anthill there too. An anthill should never be built in areas with dead insects, as this indicates the presence of disease or other danger.
Such good adaptability is largely due to excellent social organization, the ability to use various resources and maneuverability in their life: if necessary, they will change their place of residence without any problems.
Description
In nature there are yellow, red, black, red ants, and many of them are not monochromatic, and combine these colors in their coloring.
Speaking about the ant, it should be borne in mind that depending on the species, its size can range from 1 to 50 mm and even more.
Red ants from the genus Mohomorium are considered the smallest: the length of working individuals is 1-2 mm, females and males - from 23 to 4 mm. As for the largest representatives, for example, African males of Dorylus can reach 3 cm, and the uterus during the maturation of eggs, due to a greatly enlarged abdomen, reaches five centimeters.
Despite the fact that ants' vision is poorly developed (and some are completely blind), they distinguish vibrations and movement very well. Their vision is successfully replaced by antennae located on the head, which detect chemical substances, feel movement air masses In addition, with their help, insects transmit and receive signals through touch.
The upper jaws (mandibles) of ants are so strong that they successfully use them to carry food and manipulate different objects, build an anthill and successfully defend yourself. Interestingly, in some species these jaws open 270° and snap shut like traps at speeds of up to 230 km/h.
Lifestyle
An ant family is formed over many years, as a result of which the number of inhabited anthills can be several million (these are already colonies located near each other over vast territories).
Ant society is divided into three castes: females, males and workers. Taking into account the class, a division of labor occurs, and everyone is required to perform their functions at the proper level - from the queen to the worker (if they fail to cope with their duties, the queen is removed, the worker is killed).
By external signs Representatives of the three castes are not difficult to distinguish: while females and males have wings, workers (females with an underdeveloped reproductive system) do not. True, after fertilization, the queen’s wings usually either fall off, or she chews them off for herself, but even in this case, she can be distinguished by her enormous size.
While queens and workers emerge primarily from fertilized eggs, which contain the two sets of chromosomes they received from the egg and sperm, males emerge from unfertilized ones. Before turning into an adult, the red, red, black ant goes through the stages of egg, larva and pupa.
Uterus
One nest can contain from one to several females capable of producing offspring (queen). These individuals are externally distinguished by their larger size and have wings before fertilization.
The female mates only once in her entire life, taking off after the male when a certain moment approaches (this process is called mating flight). There are species that mate with only one male, and others with several dozen. As a result, the uterus receives a supply of sperm in an amount that it consumes throughout its life, and it lives from twelve to twenty years.
After fertilization, the queen either leaves and forms her own family, or remains in the old anthill. If she leaves, she must find a new place for the nest, create the first “room”, and some time later begin to lay eggs in it.
At the same time, in some species, the queen, in anticipation of the first offspring, leaves the anthill in search of food, in others, she sits incessantly on eggs and larvae, maintaining her existence with the help of fat reserves. The queen feeds the larvae with “food” eggs or with the help of the salivary secretion she secretes.
Due to the fact that no one helps her look after the first cubs, the first individuals turn out to be very small, one might even say dwarf.
It will be interesting to know about the queen ant that, contrary to popular belief, she is not the center of the family: the more queens in the nest, the less respectful they are treated. For example, they can give it to another anthill where there is no queen, and even kill it if fertility has decreased, after raising a new queen.
Males
Almost all males, with a few exceptions, emerge from unfertilized eggs, and therefore are carriers of only one set of chromosomes, the maternal one. Almost all of them have wings, and they fight so fiercely among themselves for young females that they often die. In fact, their entire role is reduced to fertilizing young queens, so after mating they die.
Workers
The overwhelming number of individuals are workers, females with an underdeveloped reproductive system, whose main task is to take care of the family living in the anthill. They do not have wings, they are not as large as females, they have smaller eyes, and in some species they are completely absent. The roles between workers are distributed largely depending on the characteristics of their body:
- Soldiers are large workers with disproportionately large heads and strong jaws (mandibles) that they can use effectively during combat. While there is no fighting, they perform the same functions as other working red or black ants;
- Nurses, as a rule, are young insects who look after the larvae, who tell them whether a red or black ant of what social status will appear. If necessary, they destroy excess female larvae (this is done to control the number of individuals capable of creating offspring) or change their feeding regime, creating a working individual;
- Foragers - scour in search of food and, having found it, inform the rest of the ants, laying marks to the nest using pheromones.
Among the ants there are builders (monitor the condition of the nest, dig tunnels, repair it), cleaners (clean the anthill and carry dead insects beyond its boundaries), honey barrels (keep reserves of liquid carbohydrate food), shepherds (graze livestock on the leaves, whose role is played by aphids) and representatives of other “professions”.
If it turns out that a worker is not engaged in his duties and copes poorly with them, he changes his profession, for example, a forager turns into a nanny. Insects and old ants do not abandon in trouble: they become watchmen, food keepers or observers. An equally interesting fact is that they care for the wounded and dying: they bring them food, for example, feed them the juice that aphids secrete until they are able to consume it.
Pheromones in the life of insects
An important role in the life of insects is played by glands that secrete various substances, with the help of some, for example, pheromones, they communicate. For example, foragers fix the food they discover with the help of pheromones, and mark the road until all the food ends up in the anthill (as soon as this happens, they stop marking the road with pheromones, and the smell dissipates).
This method allows the ants to cope with unexpected obstacles: if an obstacle suddenly appears on the way, the foragers begin their work. Having found new way, they mark the path to the anthill, and its relatives begin their journey along the laid route.
Another interesting fact about the ant is its ability, with the help of pheromones, to communicate about the family during the exchange of food (what it currently needs, for example, what kind of food or the need for work in the nest).
Also speaking about the ant, it should be borne in mind that each of them has glands that they use for defense and attack (they are poisonous and almost all species have a sting). For example, some glands produce an acidic secretion, while many of the poisons they produce are characterized by the presence of complex compounds in combination with allergenic proteins. If a black worker ant finds itself in trouble, in order to protect the nest, it commits suicide: as a result of a specific muscle contraction, its abdomen ruptures and the secretion of the gland, which contains substances that glue the enemy, is sprayed out in all directions.
Physical signals
Naturally, insects can communicate with each other not only with the help of pheromones, but also with sounds (some species chirp using abdominal segments), as well as touches (for example, begging for food). There are two opposing opinions: some scientists are convinced that they are absolutely deaf, others categorically disagree with this.
However, it is known for sure that insects sense vibration very well. solids, and some species clearly produce sounds while in the pupal stage. For example, a black ant that has not yet been born reports its social status working nannies.
Nutrition
It can be said about ants that almost all of them are predators, scavengers, and also feed on plant foods (adults eat carbohydrate foods, larvae eat protein foods). They find food not only on the ground, but also an ant on a tree in search of food is a common occurrence. For protein food, they eat invertebrates, mainly insects: they pick up corpses, hunt and even raise livestock (aphids).
They get carbohydrate food from honeydew: it is given to them in abundance by their cattle and aphids (except that aphids secrete a special liquid, which red, red and black ants eat with pleasure, and the aphids themselves act as meat). They also feed on seeds, plant sap, nectar, and mushrooms (they often grow the mushrooms they need on their own).
They take all the prey to the anthill, where they distribute it among themselves (they never eat on the side). There are species that have a process in the esophagus, nicknamed the “social stomach”: in it, insects store food during transportation, and, having delivered it to the place, remove it, and then distribute it among the ants.
Role in society
Speaking about the ant, it should be noted that it performs many functions that are useful both for nature and for humans. For example, it saturates the soil with oxygen, and forest ants, as well as residents of fields and gardens, regulate the number of insect pests with their active predatory behavior.
In some cases, this activity also causes damage, primarily for silkworms: by eating their caterpillars, the red or black ant extremely harms the entire industry.
The ability of these insects to make the most of the resources available to them often leads to conflict with humans. For example, since they often raise their “livestock” for cultivated plants, aphids, feeding on sap, often destroy the crop. Insects often invade people's homes, gradually increasing the colony; if they are not stopped in time, they will at least begin to spoil food, spreading various infections.
The relationship between an ant and a person is ambiguous. If in some farms these insects are specially bred so that they help in work, then in others, on the contrary, entire programs are developed in order to fight them as pests.
Such actions are becoming more and more successful: if previously the fight against ants was carried out more traditional methods, using substances that do not harm the environment, and are unsuccessful, then now various chemicals make it possible to get rid of them in the house in just a few days.
But controlling the population in vegetable gardens, orchards and fields is not so easy: therefore, measures are more aimed at controlling the number of colonies, while most attempts have a short-term effect. Moreover, such a fight against ants requires a lot of caution, since inhaling such toxic fumes is harmful, especially for asthmatics and allergy sufferers.
Ants are one of the most numerous and famous insects. They are distinguished by extremely complex social organization, biology and behavior. There are 12,000 species of ants in the world. Along with their closest relatives, wasps, these insects are included in the order Hymenoptera, but at the same time they are so unique that they stand out as a separate superfamily.
The ant's body is divided into three sections: a large head, a relatively small chest and a voluminous abdomen.
The paws are relatively thin, but they are armed with tenacious claws. Distinctive feature These insects have a thin interception between the chest and abdomen and various glands that secrete odorous substances (each species has its own), which to a certain extent replace the tongue of these insects. With the help of odorous marks, ants signal danger, distinguish their own from strangers, notify about the beginning of the breeding season, the availability of food, and even... the need to take out the trash. The scent of carpenter ants is so strong that a person can easily smell it, and these insects smell like geraniums. In addition, the glands can secrete formic acid or poison (some species have a small sting for this purpose). However, the main organ of defense of ants is the mandibles. They are quite large, sharp and capable of snapping at a phenomenal speed - 120-230 km/h! Therefore, the bite of even a tiny ant is very sensitive and can scare off a relatively large predator.
The ant's brain in relation to body weight is one of the largest animals in the world, but the idea of the extraordinary intelligence of these creatures is greatly exaggerated. In fact, ants do not have high intelligence, since all their reactions are exclusively innate. But the complexity and diversity of these instincts have no analogues in nature and, indeed, amaze the imagination.
As with all social insects, individuals of the same species in ants are divided into three castes: egg-laying females (queens or queens), males and sterile females (workers). Belonging to a caste is determined genetically and cannot be changed under any circumstances. Queens are the largest in size; at the beginning of life they are winged, but after the mating summer they chew off their wings. Males are the smallest in the colony and are also winged. Working ants are always wingless; they are larger than males, but significantly smaller than the queen. Only in the most primitive species do all worker ants look the same, but most often within this caste there are their own morphological varieties. This division is due to the “professional” specialization of worker ants. In general, the color of these insects is inconspicuous: black, red, brown. The tiniest dacetine ants are no more than 1 mm in length, and the largest species, the giant dinoponera and the giant camponotus, reach 3 cm!
Giant Camponotus (Camponotus gigas).
Ants inhabit all continents, climate zones and natural areas. They are not found only in the polar regions and in the center of vast deserts. Ants are active in the tropics all year round, in the temperate zone they spend the winter in a torpored state. Almost everywhere the density of ant colonies is very high. Even in the temperate zone, several dozen species of these insects live on several square kilometers, totaling 10-20% of the biomass. In the tropics, the share of ants in the total biomass of living beings can reach up to 30%; up to 2 billion ants can live there per 1 km² of territory! This success is explained by the complex organization of ant communities.
Tiny colonies of primitive ant species are able to fit their nest into a nut shell or an empty stomach.
All species of these insects are colonial. In the most primitive species, the colony size can amount to several dozen worker ants, and the most large families may include up to 22 million individuals. Most species are sedentary; they create special nests for housing - anthills. Usually the main part of the anthill is immersed in the soil, where it forms an extensive system of passages, sometimes reaching a depth of 4 m. The queen, eggs and larvae are located here. The appearance of the outer part of the anthill can vary from simple hole in the ground to a huge heap of twigs and pine needles.
The anthills of red forest ants (Formica rufa) are the largest in the world, their height can reach 2 m!
The nests of cave ants from Australia look unusual. They are located in the ground, and the ants surround the entrance to the nest with a fairly high barrier of dry leaves and twigs.
A nest of cave ants (Polyrhachis macropa) is surrounded by leaves of a veinless acacia tree (Acacia aneura).
The so-called spiral ants build real labyrinths of dried clay around the entrance.
Nest of spiral ants.
But the most amazing ant nests are above the surface. Red-breasted carpenter ants behave like real bark beetles. They gnaw holes in rotten wood and make their nests in the trunks of old trees.
Cellular nest of odorous carpenter ants (Lasius fuliginosus).
The related odorous carpenter ants do not gnaw out tunnels, but build cardboard nests in hollows.
A nest of sharp-bellied ants can be confused with a tinder fungus.
Finally, sharp-bellied ants build real paper nests in the crowns, similar to wasp nests. The dwellings of tailor ants or weaver ants can be considered the pinnacle of construction art. They create nests from tree leaves, and do this without tearing them off the branches. During the construction process, worker ants grab the edge of one leaf with their paws, and hold the edge of another with their mandibles; at this time, their fellow ants bring their own larvae to the edges of the leaves, secreting adhesive threads.
Green weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) build a nest.
The arrangement of groups of insects depends on the configuration of the leaves and does not change until the process of stitching the nest is completed.
And this is what the result of the work of weaver ants looks like. The basis of the nest was made up of live (green) leaves from several branches. Where there was not enough material, the ants skillfully patched up the gaps with fallen (brown) leaves.
Some types of ants do not have permanent nests and roam all the time. But the movement of the column cannot last forever; insects are forced to periodically stop to reproduce. In this case, they create a temporary nest from their own bodies. Many ants weave into openwork networks, from which a huge ball is formed. In its very center there is a queen laying eggs.
A giant living nest consisting of nomadic ants, or Burchell's ants (Eciton burchellii).
The relationships of ants in a family are extremely complex and varied. Only in the most primitive species can the queen leave the nest and participate in collecting food. In most cases, the queen is engaged only in laying eggs, and all other types of work are performed by worker ants. But this does not mean that their caste is in an oppressed position. After all, it is the worker ants that often determine the fate of the queen: if she lays few eggs, she can be replaced with a more fertile queen, and the unwanted one is killed. In turn, the queen’s well-being depends on how abundantly she is fed, and therefore on the number of working individuals. If the worker ants die, the unattended queen, eggs and larvae also die. Therefore, the young queen is primarily concerned with increasing the number of her “subjects.”
A slave ant carries a larva. The jaws of these insects are adapted for capturing and holding prey.
The professional responsibilities of worker ants are determined by the needs of the species. In all types of ants, young worker individuals begin their “career” in the anthill by working as “nannies” and “nursers”: they transfer eggs and pupae from one chamber of the anthill to another, protect them from theft, and help the new generation hatch. Their responsibilities also include work on expanding the passages, cleaning the nest, and removing the corpses of dead relatives. Over time, they begin to move further and further from the nest and move on to collecting food. It's interesting that " career“directly depends on the success of the first campaigns. Individuals that bring little food remain “nannies” for the rest of their lives, and those who are especially lucky in finding food become foragers very quickly.
The forager profession is the most common in the ant family, but not the only one. Since worker ants are attacked by predators, and sometimes by their own brothers, many species have worker soldiers to protect them. They are larger than ordinary individuals and are armed with powerful mandibles. The behavior of the soldiers is different: among wandering ants they move at the head and along the edges of the column; among harvester ants, they form a guard of honor on the side of the path along which food collectors follow; in leaf-cutter ants, soldiers ride on pieces of leaves carried by foragers and protect them from attack from above; In the European cork-headed ant, the soldiers have a bluntly cut head, with which they plug the passages in the anthill and allow only individuals that have “their” smell into it.
Burchell's Eciton Worker-Soldier is armed with enormous mandibles.
Among ant professions there are also quite exotic ones. For example, Australian honey ants store food... in the bodies of their own relatives! To do this, they have special working individuals who never leave the nest. They spend their entire lives clinging to the ceiling of the chamber with their paws; their main responsibility is to absorb food brought by foragers. From constant feeding, these ants swell incredibly and become huge; if such an individual accidentally falls from the ceiling, its abdomen bursts and it dies. When there is a need for food, other family members come to these “living barrels” and beg for food from them. However, the ability to feed family members is characteristic of all types of ants; it is called trophallaxis. Thanks to it, a well-fed ant is able to quickly transfer part of the accumulated energy to hungry and weakening individuals, and the survival of the family as a whole increases.
"Live barrels" of Australian honey ants hang from the ceiling of an anthill.
Smell is the main marker that determines the behavior of an individual and the attitude of its fellows towards it. An ant from someone else's nest (even if it belongs to the same species) will not be allowed into the anthill. By smell, ants determine where and what kind of food was found: they follow the odorous marks left by the lucky one to the food source. That is why you can often see these insects moving in a chain one after another. The concerted effort allows the ants to carry prey and building materials many times their size. The wounded ant also begins to secrete special substances that literally call on its fellows to come to its aid. Dead ants secrete oleic acid, which encourages the workers to remove the corpse from the nest. In addition to smell, contacts with antennae can be used, and in some species, chirping and tapping with the abdomen. Thus, primitive instincts in different combinations form very complex types of behavior.
Thanks to their tenacious legs, ants move with equal ease on horizontal and vertical surfaces. Runner ants (phaeton ants) that live in the deserts of Africa run especially fast. Swift running helps them prepare food at midday without getting burned on the hot ground. Wood ants can glide, changing the direction of flight; some species are able to jump. Thanks to mutual assistance, ants are not afraid of even obstacles that are insurmountable for single individuals.
The ants formed a living bridge across the crevice between the stones. Neither of them could have covered that distance on their own.
During floods, fire ants form rafts from their own bodies; these floating clusters are capable of crossing rivers.
On the surface of the living raft, white eggs and larvae are visible, which fire ants especially carefully protect from getting wet.
Among ants there are herbivorous, predatory and omnivorous species.
The European or steppe harvester ant (Messor structor) prepares food.
Herbivorous harvester ants, during the flowering of cereals in deserts and steppes, are harvesting seeds at an accelerated pace, the reserves of which last them for the whole year. Carpenter ants eat dead wood and gum from trees.
Leaf-cutter ants, with the same diligence, bite off pieces of leaves and take them to the anthill. True, they do not eat the leaves themselves, but only chew and store this wet mass in underground chambers. There, in the dampness and darkness, mushrooms begin to grow on this “silage”, which the ants eat.
A worker leaf-cutter ant carries a piece of cut leaf on which a soldier sits.
Omnivorous species collect the corpses of invertebrates, sweet secretions of aphids and other herbivorous insects.
The ant milks the humpback, which gets rid of the annoying “shepherd” with a drop of sweet liquid.
Ants love these sugary secretions so much that they carefully protect aphids and take care of them in every possible way: they transfer them to healthy plants, hidden in an anthill at night, grazed and protected from attacks by predators, such as ladybugs.
Camponotus ants and the cluster of aphids they care for.
Predatory and partly omnivorous species attack living insects and their larvae. Nomadic ants living in South America are especially merciless. These are large and very aggressive insects, fearlessly attacking all living things in their path. Their bites and large numbers can put people, and even such formidable animals as jaguars, to flight. If escape is impossible (for example, the animal is tied), then the ants, by biting, bring it to painful shock and death, and then, with their joint efforts, eat the victim. Not a single animal in the jungle tries to resist them, but immediately runs away when it sees a moving column.
Ants surrounded the egg of a Morpho peleides butterfly without waiting for the mother to fly away.
All types of ants reproduce strictly certain time 1-2 times a year. The simplest method of reproduction is the so-called budding. At the same time, a young queen is born in the mother colony, which moves with some of the workers to a separate anthill. But more often, ants perform mating flights, during which young males and females rise into the sky. Here individuals from different anthills mix with each other and form pairs. Young queens with one or more males land on the ground and begin to build a nest. Soon after fertilization, the males die, and the females lay eggs, from which workers will subsequently hatch. Until the workers begin to forage, the queen does not eat anything. This period can sometimes last up to a year, and the female’s wings help her survive hunger. After the mating flight, she chews them off, and the remaining muscles dissolve in her body, released nutrients go to form eggs and maintain the life of the uterus.
Ant eggs form a sticky mass, making them easier for workers to carry. Under the abdomen of an adult individual, legless larvae are visible; they differ from eggs in having a dark head, weak segmentation, and crumbled villi.
In all species of ants, females (workers or young queens) are born from fertilized eggs, and males from unfertilized eggs. Thus, the composition of the family self-regulates: the fewer males, the higher the probability of their birth. A surprising exception is the small fire ant, for which everything happens exactly the opposite. From unfertilized eggs, only female queens are born, and from fertilized eggs - workers. In some eggs, paternal genes lead to the destruction of maternal chromosomes, and then males are born from them. Thus, females of this species always inherit only maternal genes, and males only inherit paternal ones, that is, both sexes essentially reproduce independently of each other by cloning.
Despite their tiny size, ants live for a very long time: workers live for 1-3 years, and queens live up to 20 years! And only the age of males usually does not exceed several weeks.
A worker ant looks at the queen, exhausted from her mating flight.
Ants have many natural enemies. Adults are eaten by various birds, toads, frogs, lizards, shrews, predatory wasps, and spiders. In search of eggs and pupae, anthills are ravaged by wild boars and bears. Anteaters, aardvarks, moloch lizards, and antlions feed exclusively on these insects. When attacking an anthill, instinct prompts the ants not to hide, but to jointly attack the enemy. Thus, the colony survives due to the death of individual individuals. In cylindrical camponotuses, the instinct of self-sacrifice is so developed that in the event of an attack, they literally commit hara-kiri to themselves. A sticky liquid pours out from the ripped open abdomen, gluing the enemy together.
Ants provide an invaluable service to various forest flowers. It is difficult for these plants to spread their seeds because they are small and there is no wind in the forest. Therefore, the seeds of blueberry, violet, marianberry, hoofweed, celandine, and kandyk have a tiny juicy appendage that attracts ants. Having picked the seed, the ant drags it into the nest and feasts on the juicy appendage, and throws away the seed itself. Thus, these insects annually carry away billions of seeds throughout the forest. In the tropics, some plants attract ants to protect their leaves from being eaten by other insects. To do this, they provide their guards with free housing. For example, African acacias have hollow thorns, and myrmecodia have thick tubers with many passages and cavities. Their guards settle in these ready-made anthills.
Tuberous myrmecodia (Myrmecodia tuberosa) on a tree branch. A section of the tuber shows cavities and passages for ants.
People use ants in a variety of ways. In Mexico and Thailand, the large, nutritious eggs of some species are collected and used in cooking as a caviar substitute. Large ants are fried, and tenacious weaver ants are used for suturing field conditions. To do this, the ant is brought to the edges of the wound and allowed to grab onto the skin, after which the body is torn off and the head is left. The ant's mandibles act like a stapler, firmly stitching the edges together for several days until the wound is completely scarred. IN middle lane ants are sometimes attracted to protect forests and gardens, but it must be borne in mind that the habit of these insects to breed aphids can also be harmful. In the tropics, leaf-cutter ants cause great damage to fruit plantations. Aggressive fire ants are extremely dangerous. When they bite, they release poison into the victim's body. Although it is not fatal, it causes severe pain, similar to a burn, and in some cases, a dangerous allergic reaction.
The benefits of ants far outweigh the harm they can cause, which is why these insects have long been loved by people. They are an example of hard work and mutual assistance. At the same time, a number of endemic species are threatened with extinction. Now on the Red List International Union Nature Protection has listed 146 species of ants.
Today we will tell you Interesting Facts about ants, which will allow you to get to know these insects better. Surely you don’t know how much one ant weighs. What are they doing in winter months? And only a few people know that these little creatures can be useful.
Some features of the existence of these insects are more than surprising.
External structure
The ant family has a fairly large number of species, but they are all united by their body structure. As you know, there are worker ants that constantly leave the nest and scurry around in search of food. These individuals are wingless, regardless of sex, and only females have them during the mating flight. After this, the females bite off their wings and become the same as other worker ants.
The body of these insects is covered with a chitinous shell and has the following structure:
- head;
- prothorax;
- abdomen.
Every separate species ants have their own head structure, on which mandibles are located, designed for carrying food, building material and, of course, for protection.
The eyes of these insects are compounded - they consist of several lenses. But not all types of ants are sighted. For example, the Dracula ant has no eyes at all and is completely blind. And those species that have eyes are not able to distinguish objects, but can only recognize movements. Some of the species also respond to the degree of illumination of the space and the polarization of light.
The antennae play the role of sensory organs - with their help, the ant recognizes odors, picks up vibrations and vibrations in the air, receives and transmits signals in direct contact with other individuals.
On a note! It is characteristic that only ants have such antennae. Other insects lack them.
Some species are “armed” with a sting, which is located at the end of the abdomen. It serves the ants both for protection and for hunting.
Let's look at the paws
With the help of legs, an ant can not only move, but in fact they are intended for various functions:
- the first pair of legs is equipped with peculiar brushes, with the help of which insects clean their antennae and other legs;
- the hind legs are equipped with spurs, which are most often used for defense and attack when fighting with other ants;
- all the legs have small serrations that allow these insects to move along absolutely smooth and at the same time vertical surfaces;
On a note! Pharaoh ants move on glass with ease, which, for example, black cockroaches are not capable of.
- some species use their paws to swim across water obstacles. For example, a bulldog ant can overcome a puddle 15 cm wide.
Features of reproduction
Now we should consider how ants reproduce. This process is extremely effective. The fact is that offspring are produced by one female, which is called the uterus. She is constantly in the nest, laying eggs and caring for them. Besides her, there are males around the future offspring. Some of them are labor force, which from time to time leaves the nest to find food; the second part simply “looks after” the eggs, protecting them from enemies. In addition to the queen, there are other females in the anthill, but they are not able to reproduce and are the same labor force, like males.
Once a year, young females and males emerge from the pupae and can mate. During the mating flight they are winged, but immediately after fertilization the females leave the nest and try to find a new place to create their anthill. To provide herself with food, the newly-made queen gnaws off her wings.
House ants behave somewhat differently. Young queens do not organize new nests, but create peculiar “colonies”. At the same time, they spread to new territories only after the “native” anthill becomes too crowded. After “settlement,” a strong connection is constantly maintained between the main and daughter nests. You can learn more about the structure of an anthill in the article.
Important! For this reason, it becomes quite difficult to remove domestic ants. After all, it is necessary to detect all anthills in order to completely destroy the insect colony.
In the nests of domestic ants there are both working individuals and scouts, who treat the former “not with the deepest respect”, but rather perceive them as containers with seed material. As long as the area of the anthill allows it to accommodate all those present, the queens in it do not show hostility towards each other. Although males can even destroy some of them, most often those who lay few eggs.
Ant weight
How much does an ant weigh? The answer to this question will depend solely on the type of insect:
- our “native” red and black ants weigh from 5 to 7 mg;
- the house pharaoh ant is the lightest - 1-2 mg;
- bullet ant is the heaviest and weighs about 90 mg;
- and the weight of the uterus of the African wandering ant can reach 10 g.
But what is most surprising is that the total mass of all ants living on the planet is equal to the mass of all humanity, and this is no less than 1,000,000,000 tons! And if you believe the calculations of scientists, then there are 10,000,000 ants per person.
Ant wintering
What do you think ants do in winter? Sleeping - many will answer. No, you're wrong. Their life continues to boil. A few species enter a state of diapause, when the internal organs of insects reduce their work, but do not completely stop it.
Ants spend the winter months in the same anthills in which they are active. And to prevent frosty air from penetrating inside, insects carefully seal the entrances with dry leaves. Sometimes they are lowered into the lower “compartment” of the nest, where a warmer temperature is maintained.
During wintering, ants are inactive and do not feed as often. But if there are larvae in the nest, then the adults remain fully active and feed the offspring. In addition, due to temperature fluctuations, the upper layers of the anthill periodically get wet and the ants are constantly forced to transfer food supplies to dry compartments.
On a note! Under harsh climatic conditions, for example, in northern regions, ants are able to tolerate especially low temperatures. Thus, the body temperature of -58°C was recorded in larvae wintering in Kolyma. This figure is the lowest for insects in general.
Some species of ants that do not have diapause are forced to remain active throughout the winter. To survive, they stock up on food during the autumn months, which should last until the thaw. At this time, the workforce is repairing the nest and trying to maintain the microclimate.
The larvae of these types of ants require protein food to grow, which is impossible to obtain in winter conditions. Before the arrival of cold weather, they develop to the state of adults and then go to winter. And with the onset of spring, when access to protein food opens, the queen begins to produce new offspring.
The benefits of small insects
Do you know how ants are useful? In fact, these tiny insects perform many difficult ecological functions and are capable of providing invaluable services to humans.
For nature
- They take an active part in regulating the number of harmful insects, simply by eating their larvae.
Interesting fact! In just one season, thanks to one anthill, from 100,000 to 1,000,000 pests are destroyed.
- Promotes the spread of plants. As you know, ants constantly carry food for the queen and most often plant seeds play this role. But the workers are not able to drag all the “catch” to the nest. And the lost part simply germinates.
- Helps flowers with pollination. Ants are sweet tooths that love to enjoy nectar, and as a result, they carry pollen from one flower to another on their legs.
- Increases soil fertility. By making underground passages, insects loosen the soil, saturate it with oxygen and enrich it with organic compounds and minerals.
Now you understand why ants are considered forest orderlies.
Ants are one of the most highly organized insects on the planet. Their abilities for cooperation and self-sacrifice for the good of the colony, high adaptability, and activity that resembles intelligence in complexity - all this has long attracted the attention of scientists. And today science knows numerous interesting facts about ants, some of which are known only to a narrow circle of specialists, and some of which refute established myths. For example…
Ants are the most numerous insects on Earth
According to estimates by one of the world's most respected myrmecologists, Edward Wilson, there are between 1 and 10 quadrillion individual ants living on Earth today - that is, from 10 to the 15th power to 10 to the 16th power of individual ants.
Incredible, but true - for every living person there are about a million of these creatures, and their total mass is approximately equal to the total mass of all people.
On a note
Myrmecology is the science of ants. Accordingly, a myrmecologist is a scientist primarily engaged in the study of this group of insects. It was thanks to the works of such scientists that very interesting facts about ants became known, expanding the understanding of science about these insects.
On the Pacific island of Christmas on square meter There are about 2200 ants and 10 nest entrances on the soil surface. And, for example, in the savannas of West Africa, for every square kilometer of area there are 2 billion ants and 740,000 nests!
No other group of insects reaches such a population size and density.
Among the ants are the most dangerous insects in the world
Perhaps the inhabitants of equatorial Africa are not as afraid of poisonous snakes, large predators, or spiders as they are - a column of several million insects, whose soldiers are armed with powerful jaws, destroys almost all life in its path. Such trips are the key to the survival of the anthill.
More interesting facts: stray ants are one of the most common. The soldier can reach a length of 3 cm, the uterus - 5 cm.
When the inhabitants of a village learn that such a colony is about to pass through their settlement, they leave their homes, taking all their domestic animals with them. If you forget a goat in a stall, the ants will bite it to death. But they destroy all cockroaches, rats and mice in the villages.
But the bullet ant is considered the most dangerous ant in the world: 30 of its bites per 1 kg of the victim’s body weight are fatal. The pain from their bite exceeds that from the bites of any wasps, and is felt throughout the day.
Among the Indian tribes South America To initiate a boy into a man, a sleeve with live ants placed in it is put on the initiate’s arm. After being bitten, the boy's hands become paralyzed and swollen for several days, sometimes shock occurs and the fingers turn black.
Ant eggs are not really eggs
What are commonly called ant eggs are actually developing ant larvae. The ant eggs themselves are very small and are of no practical interest to humans.
But larvae are readily eaten in Africa and Asia - such a dish is rich in protein and fat. In addition, ant larvae are ideal food for the chicks of various ornamental birds.
Ants are a famous delicacy
The most famous dish ant sauce is a sauce made from wood ants that is used in South-East Asia as a seasoning.
Honey ants are very interesting in this regard. In each anthill there are from several tens to several hundred ants, which are used by the remaining members of the colony as food reservoirs. They are specially fed during the rainy season; their abdomen is filled with a mixture of water and sugars and swells to such a size that the insect cannot move.
During the dry season, other individuals from the anthill lick the secretion constantly secreted by these living barrels and can do without external food sources. Such ants are actively collected where they live - in Mexico and the southern United States - and eaten. They taste like honey.
Another interesting gastronomic fact: in Thailand and Myanmar, ant larvae are consumed as a delicacy and sold by weight in markets. And in Mexico, the larvae of large ants are eaten in the same way as fish eggs in Russia.
Ants and termites are completely different insects
Indeed, ants belong to the order Hymenoptera, and their closest relatives are wasps, bees, sawflies and ichneumon wasps.
Termites are a fairly isolated group of insects close to cockroaches. Some scientists even include them in the cockroach order.
This is interesting
Complex social structure a termite mound, reminiscent of that in an anthill, is just one example of convergence in the animal world, the development of similar traits in representatives of different groups finding themselves in similar conditions.
It is noteworthy that in equatorial Africa there lives a mammal - the naked mole rat - whose colonies also resemble colonies of ants: in mole rats, only one female reproduces, and the rest of the individuals serve her, feed her and expand their burrows.
The vast majority of ants are females
All worker ants and soldier ants in each anthill are females and are not capable of reproducing. They develop from fertilized eggs, while unfertilized eggs develop into males.
An interesting fact about ants: whether a worker ant or a future queen grows from an egg depends on how the larva feeds. Worker ants can decide for themselves how to feed the brood and how many future queens to feed.
Some do not have a queen as such, but all working females can reproduce. There are also species in whose nests several queens live. A classic example of this is the nests of house ants (pharaoh ants).
Queen ants can live up to 20 years
The usual lifespan of a queen that has managed to establish a colony is 5-6 years, but some live up to 12 or even 20 years! In the world of insects, this is a record: most single insects, even larger ones, live for several months at most. Only in some cicadas and beetles, the full life expectancy, including the larval stage, can reach 6-7 years.
This interesting fact does not mean at all that all queens have such a life expectancy: most fertilized females die after the summer, and a significant part of the established colonies also die out for various reasons in the first year of their existence.
There are slave ants
The connections of different ants with each other are so diverse that even people can sometimes envy them.
For example, in a whole genus of Amazon ants, worker ants do not know how to feed and care for the nest on their own. But they know how to attack the nests of others, more small species ants, and steal larvae from them. The ants developing from these larvae will subsequently care for other than their queen and soldiers.
In other species, this behavior has gone so far that the queen simply enters someone else’s anthill, kills the queen living there, and the worker ants recognize her as their own and care for her and her offspring. After this, the anthill itself is doomed: from the eggs of such a female, only females capable of capturing the anthill of another species will develop, and with the death of all the working ants, the colony will be empty.
There are also benign cases of slavery. For example, the queen steals several pupae to found a colony, and the ants that develop from them help her actually initial stage development of the colony. Further, the colony develops with the help of the descendants of the queen herself.
Ants can learn
Interesting facts about ants related to the phenomenon of learning attract the close attention of many scientists.
For example, in some species of ants, those individuals that managed to find food teach others to find a place with food. Moreover, if, for example, in bees this information is transmitted during a special dance, then the ant specifically teaches another to follow a specific route.
Video: ants build a living bridge with their bodies
Experiments have also verified that during training, the teacher ant reaches the desired point four times slower than it would reach it on its own.
Ants know how to farm
This interesting feature ants have been known for a long time - South American ants use the most complex food chain in the animal world:
- some members of the colony chew off big piece a leaf of a tree and bring it to the anthill
- smaller individuals that never leave the colony chew the leaves, mix them with excrement and parts of a special mycelium
- the resulting mass is stored in special areas of the anthill - real beds - where mushrooms develop on it, providing the ants with protein food.
The interesting thing about ants is that they do not eat the fruiting bodies themselves - they feed on special growths of the mycelium. Some members of the colony constantly bite off the emerging fruiting bodies, preventing the mycelium from wasting useful material on useless legs and hats.
This is interesting
When a fertilized young female leaves the nest, she carries away a tiny piece of mycelium in a special pocket on her head. It is precisely this reserve that is the basis for the well-being of the future colony.
Apart from ants, only humans and termites have learned to cultivate other living organisms for their own benefit.
Relationship between ants and aphids
The herding tendencies of ants are known to many: some anthills are so dependent on swarms of aphids that when the latter die out, they also die. Scientists believe that the secretion of the secret at one time was defensive reaction aphids from the attack of enemies, only the secretion itself was sharp-smelling and toxic.
But one day, natural selection suggested to pests that ants could not be scared away, but rather lured and forced to protect themselves. This is how a unique example of symbiosis of two completely different groups of insects arose: aphids share sweet, healthy and satisfying secretions with ants, and the ants protect them.
The secretions of aphids that attract ants are called honeydew. In addition to aphids, scale insects, scale insects and some cicadas share it with ants.
Interestingly, many insects have learned to secrete a secret that is attractive to ants in order to penetrate their nests. Some beetles, caterpillars and butterflies feed on the reserves of the ants themselves in the anthill, while the ants do not touch them precisely because of their ability to share honeydew. Some such guests in anthills simply devour ant larvae, and the ants themselves are ready to forgive their treachery for a drop of sweet secretion.
The above are just some interesting facts about ants. In the biology of each species of these insects you can find something unique and original.
It is thanks to this uniqueness and abundance of specific adaptive features that they managed to become one of the most numerous and advanced groups of arthropods in general.
Interesting video: a battle between two ant colonies
Ants are insects that cannot live alone, but live in colonies of up to a million inhabitants. They are very self-organized. They belong to the order Hymenoptera. Promotes soil fertility. Many plants grow faster near anthills. They protect plants from pests. At the same time, the ant insect itself serves as food for many species of birds and animals. There are more than 14,000 in our world various types ants. An ant can lift 20 times its own weight!
Family: Ants
Class: Insects
Order: Hymenoptera
Type: Arthropods
Kingdom: Animals
Domain: Eukaryotes
Anatomy of an ant
The entire body of an ant is divided into three parts, like any insect - head, chest and abdomen, as well as 6 legs. Ants can be divided into three types: males, females and workers. Males and females have wings, but workers do not. There are some species of ants where all ants, including workers, have wings. Workers do all the menial tasks in the colony - getting food, building nests, caring for eggs, protecting them from enemies, and so on.
The size of ants depends on their species. The smallest species of ants start at 1 mm in size, and the largest species can reach up to 30-50 mm in length. They see well at a distance of 3-4 centimeters. The colors are also varied and depend on the type of insect - yellow, red, brown, black and even green and bluish. With the help of antennae they interact with their habitat. The jaw is an instrument in performance various jobs. Some types of ants have a sting that allows them to defend themselves from enemies.
The ant insect has compound eyes that consist of numerous lenses, but its vision is rather weak, and some underground species are completely blind. In addition to compound eyes, the ant has three simple eyes. At the end of each leg, ants have hooked claws that help them climb vertical surfaces no problem.
Where does the ant live?
Ants are distributed throughout the world, except for the continent of Antarctica. They live in huge families in anthills, which they can build in the soil, under stones, in wood. There are species of ants that live in other people's anthills instead of building their own nests. There are species of ants that can keep slaves in the form of ants of other species, using their labor for their own benefit.
What does an ant eat?
The main food of the ant insect is plant sap, a sweet liquid that is secreted by aphids, as well as small insects. Some species of ants eat plant seeds and mushrooms.
Lifestyle of ants
Ants are evolutionarily advanced insects. This is due to the fact that they live huge social groups where there is a clear division of labor, communication abilities are developed, and individuals are able to coordinate their actions. Some species of ants have a developed language that can convey complex information. Ants are protected by formic acid, which they are able to produce, as well as by strong mandibles.
Each ant family consists of males, several reproductive females (called queens or queens), and large quantity workers consisting of infertile females (females with an underdeveloped reproductive system). The queen differs from all other ants in her larger size and breast structure, as well as the presence of wings, which she bites off after fertilization.
At the same time, in the family there is a clear division of labor and relationships between individuals, which makes the ant society similar to the human one. At first glance, it may seem that the ants have a main queen, but in fact the guiding force is the workers, who can destroy females for low fertility, destroy excess larvae, or change their feeding regime.
Ant Reproduction
Mating in ants begins with the nuptial flight. The males take off first and spray pheromones. Due to this, the females take off after them. Mating occurs on the fly or on the ground. After some time, the males die, and the females choose a place for the nest.
Ants have several stages of development: egg, larva, which emerges from the egg, pupa and adult (adult insect). The sex of an insect depends on whether the egg is fertilized or not. From fertilized eggs, females are born, and if the egg is not fertilized, then males. The queen (reproductive female) is responsible for the reproduction of ants. She mates only once in her entire life. At the same time, she spends the sperm received from the male throughout the entire time. She then begins laying eggs. The eggs hatch into larvae. The larvae are inactive and are fed by workers.
Ant eggs
Male ants emerge from unfertilized eggs. Most often they have wings. Their role is to fertilize young winged females. Some time after their fertilization, the males die.
Ant larvae
The nutrition of the larva determines who the future ant will become - a queen (queen) or a labor force. In this way, the ants control the number of individuals of fertile females and infertile females. The ant larva goes through four stages of molting, then stops feeding, excretes the contents of its intestines and turns into a pupa. In some ant species, the larva can spin a cocoon before pupating. When the pupal stage is completed, other ants help free themselves from the cocoon, since the ant itself is not able to free itself from the cocoon. During the first days of their lives, workers help the queen care for the eggs, and then move on to other work.
Ant pupa
U different types ants there are differences in reproduction. In most species, the female mates once in her entire life, but there are species where the female can mate several times in her life. In some ant species, workers are capable of laying eggs, and some species are even capable of cloning. The lifespan of a queen can be up to 20 years, and the lifespan of a worker up to 3 years.
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