Ants are
socialEusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification....
insectInsects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s of the family
Formicidae (icon) and, along with the related
waspThe term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
s and
beeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s, belong to the order
Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is one of the largest orders of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees and ants. There are over 130,000 recognized species, with many more remaining to be described. The name refers to the heavy wings of the insects, and is derived from the Ancient Greek ὑμήν : membrane and...
. Ants
evolvedEvolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-
CretaceousThe Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
period between 110 and 130 million years ago and
diversifiedAn evolutionary radiation is an increase in taxonomic diversity or morphological disparity, due to adaptive change or the opening of ecospace. Radiations may affect one clade or many, and be rapid or gradual; where they are rapid, and driven by a single lineage's adaptation to their environment,...
after the rise of
flowering plantThe flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s. More than 12,500 out of an estimated total of 22,000
species have been classified. They are easily identified by their elbowed antennae and a distinctive node-like structure that forms a slender waist.
Ants form
coloniesAn ant colony is an underground lair where ants live, eat and mate. Colonies consist of a series of underground chambers, connected to each other and the surface of the earth by small tunnels. There are rooms for nurseries, food storage, and mating...
that range in size from a few dozen predatory individuals living in small natural cavities to highly organised colonies which may occupy large territories and consist of millions of individuals. These larger colonies consist mostly of sterile wingless females forming castes of "workers", "soldiers", or other specialised groups. Nearly all ant colonies also have some fertile males called "drones" and one or more fertile females called "
queensA queen ant is an adult, reproducing female ant in an ant colony; generally she will be the mother of all the other ants in that colony. Some female ants do not need to mate to produce offspring, reproducing through asexual parthenogenesis or cloning and all of those offspring will be female.Ant...
". The colonies are sometimes described as
superorganismA superorganism is an organism consisting of many organisms. This is usually meant to be a social unit of eusocial animals, where division of labour is highly specialised and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods of time. Ants are the best-known example of...
s because the ants appear to operate as a unified entity, collectively working together to support the colony.
Ants have colonised almost every landmass on
EarthEarth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
. The only places lacking indigenous ants are
Antarctica and a few remote or inhospitable islands. Ants thrive in most ecosystems, and may form 15–25% of the
terrestrial animalTerrestrial animals are animals that live predominantly or entirely on land , as compared with aquatic animals, which live predominantly or entirely in the water , or amphibians, which rely on a combination of aquatic and terrestrial habitats...
biomassBiomass, in ecology, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass, which is the mass of all species in the community. It can include microorganisms,...
. Their success in so many environments has been attributed to their social organisation and their ability to modify habitats, tap resources, and defend themselves. Their long
co-evolutionIn biology, coevolution is "the change of a biological object triggered by the change of a related object." Coevolution can occur at many biological levels: it can be as microscopic as correlated mutations between amino acids in a protein, or as macroscopic as covarying traits between different...
with other species has led to mimetic,
commensalIn ecology, commensalism is a class of relationship between two organisms where one organism benefits but the other is neutral...
,
parasiticParasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between organisms of different species where one organism, the parasite, benefits at the expense of the other, the host. Traditionally parasite referred to organisms with lifestages that needed more than one host . These are now called macroparasites...
, and mutualistic relationships.
Ant societies have
division of labourDivision of labour is the specialisation of cooperative labour in specific, circumscribed tasks and likeroles. Historically an increasingly complex division of labour is closely associated with the growth of total output and trade, the rise of capitalism, and of the complexity of industrialisation...
, communication between individuals, and an ability to
solve complex problemsProblem solving is a mental process and is part of the larger problem process that includes problem finding and problem shaping. Consideredthe most complex of all intellectual functions, problem solving has been defined as higher-order cognitive process that requires the modulation and control of...
. These parallels with
human societiesCivilization is a sometimes controversial term that has been used in several related ways. Primarily, the term has been used to refer to the material and instrumental side of human cultures that are complex in terms of technology, science, and division of labor. Such civilizations are generally...
have long been an inspiration and subject of study.
Many human cultures make use of ants in cuisine, medication and rituals. Some species are valued in their role as
biological pest controlBiological control of pests in agriculture is a method of controlling pests that relies on predation, parasitism, herbivory, or other natural mechanisms...
agents. However, their ability to exploit resources brings ants into conflict with humans, as they can damage crops and invade buildings. Some species, such as the
red imported fire antSee main article Fire ant.The red imported fire ant , or simply RIFA, is one of over 280 species in the widespread genus Solenopsis...
, are regarded as
invasive species"Invasive species", or invasive exotics, is a nomenclature term and categorization phrase used for flora and fauna, and for specific restoration-preservation processes in native habitats, with several definitions....
, establishing themselves in areas where they are accidentally introduced.
Etymology
The word
ant is derived from
of
Middle EnglishMiddle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
which is derived from
of Old English and is related to the
Old High GermanThe term Old High German refers to the earliest stage of the German language and it conventionally covers the period from around 500 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the second half of the 8th century, and some treat the period before 750 as 'prehistoric' and date the start of...
, hence the modern
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
. All of these words come from West Germanic
}, and the original meaning of the word was "the biter" (from Proto-Germanic
}, "off, away" +
} "cut"). The family name
Formicidae is derived from the
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
("ant") from which the words in other
Romance languagesThe Romance languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family, more precisely of the Italic languages subfamily, comprising all the languages that descend from Vulgar Latin, the language of ancient Rome...
such as the Portuguese
, Italian
, Spanish
, Romanian
and French
are derived. It has been hypothetized that a
Proto-Indo-EuropeanThe Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
word *morwi- was used, cf.
SanskritSanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...
vamrah, Latin formīca,
GreekAncient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
myrmex,
Old Church SlavonicOld Church Slavonic or Old Church Slavic was the first literary Slavic language, first developed by the 9th century Byzantine Greek missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius who were credited with standardizing the language and using it for translating the Bible and other Ancient Greek...
mraviji, Old Irish moirb,
Old NorseOld Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
maurr.
Taxonomy and evolution
The family Formicidae belongs to the order
Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is one of the largest orders of insects, comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees and ants. There are over 130,000 recognized species, with many more remaining to be described. The name refers to the heavy wings of the insects, and is derived from the Ancient Greek ὑμήν : membrane and...
, which also includes
sawfliesSawfly is the common name for insects belonging to suborder Symphyta of the order Hymenoptera. Sawflies are distinguishable from most other Hymenoptera by the broad connection between the abdomen and the thorax, and by their caterpillar-like larvae...
,
beeBees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s and
waspThe term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
s. Ants evolved from a lineage within the
vespoidVespoidea is a superfamily of order Hymenoptera of class Insecta, although older taxonomic schemes may vary in this categorization, particularly in their recognition of a now-obsolete superfamily Scolioidea...
wasps. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that ants arose in the mid-
CretaceousThe Cretaceous , derived from the Latin "creta" , usually abbreviated K for its German translation Kreide , is a geologic period and system from circa to million years ago. In the geologic timescale, the Cretaceous follows the Jurassic period and is followed by the Paleogene period of the...
period about 110 to 130 million years ago. After the rise of
flowering plantThe flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...
s about 100 million years ago they diversified and assumed ecological dominance around 60 million years ago.
In 1966,
E. O. WilsonEdward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
and his colleagues identified the
fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
remains of an ant (
Sphecomyrma freyiSphecomyrma is an extinct genus of ant which inhabited the northern hemisphere of the supercontinent Laurasia approximately 80 mya in the Cretaceous. It is one of the earliest known species of ant....
) that lived in the Cretaceous period. The specimen, trapped in amber
datingAbsolute dating is the process of determining an approximate computed age in archaeology and geology. Some scientists prefer the terms chronometric or calendar dating, as use of the word "absolute" implies an unwarranted certainty and precision...
back to more than 80 million years ago, has features of both ants and wasps.
Sphecomyrma was probably a ground forager but some suggest on the basis of groups such as the
LeptanillinaeLeptanillinae is a subfamily of ants. They are further divided into the tribes Anomalomyrmini and Leptanillini.In all Leptanillini the larva feed their hemolymph to the queen through specialized processes on their prothorax and third abdominal segment...
and Martialinae that primitive ants were likely to have been predators underneath the surface of the soil.
During the Cretaceous period, a few species of primitive ants ranged widely on the
LaurasiaIn paleogeography, Laurasia was the northernmost of two supercontinents that formed part of the Pangaea supercontinent from approximately...
n super-continent (the northern hemisphere). They were scarce in comparison to other insects, representing about 1% of the insect population. Ants became dominant after
adaptive radiationIn evolutionary biology, adaptive radiation is the evolution of ecological and phenotypic diversity within a rapidly multiplying lineage. Starting with a recent single ancestor, this process results in the speciation and phenotypic adaptation of an array of species exhibiting different...
at the beginning of the Paleogene period. By the
OligoceneThe Oligocene is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 34 million to 23 million years before the present . As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the period are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the period are slightly...
and
MioceneThe Miocene is a geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about . The Miocene was named by Sir Charles Lyell. Its name comes from the Greek words and and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern sea invertebrates than the Pliocene. The Miocene follows the Oligocene...
ants had come to represent 20-40% of all insects found in major fossil deposits. Of the species that lived in the
EoceneThe Eocene Epoch, lasting from about 56 to 34 million years ago , is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the Cenozoic Era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Palaeocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the...
epoch, approximately one in ten genera survive to the present. Genera surviving today comprise 56% of the genera in
BalticThe terms Baltic region, Baltic Rim countries, and Baltic Rim refer to slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea.- Etymology :...
amber fossils (early Oligocene), and 92% of the genera in
DominicanThe Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
amber fossils (apparently early Miocene).
TermiteTermites are a group of eusocial insects that, until recently, were classified at the taxonomic rank of order Isoptera , but are now accepted as the epifamily Termitoidae, of the cockroach order Blattodea...
s, though sometimes called
white ants, are not ants and belong to the order Isoptera. Termites are actually more closely related to
cockroachCockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es and mantids. Termites are
eusocialEusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification....
but differ greatly in the genetics of reproduction. The similar social structure is attributed to
convergent evolutionConvergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
.
Velvet antMutillidae are a family of more than 3,000 species of wasp whose wingless females resemble ants. Their common name velvet ant refers to their dense pile of hair which most often is bright scarlet or orange but may also be black, white, silver, or gold. Their bright colours serve as aposematic signals...
s look like large ants, but are wingless female
waspThe term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
s.
Distribution and diversity
| Region Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...
| Number of
species |
| Neotropics |
2162 |
| Nearctic |
580 |
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
|
180 |
| Africa Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
|
2500 |
AsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
|
2080 |
| Melanesia Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
|
275 |
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
|
985 |
PolynesiaPolynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
|
42 |
Ants are found on all continents except
Antarctica, and only a few large islands such as
GreenlandGreenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
,
IcelandIceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, parts of Polynesia and the
Hawaiian IslandsHawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
lack native ant species. Ants occupy a wide range of
ecological nicheIn ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem to each other; e.g. a dolphin could potentially be in another ecological niche from one that travels in a different pod if the members of these pods utilize significantly different food...
s, and are able to exploit a wide range of food resources either as direct or indirect herbivores, predators and scavengers. Most species are omnivorous
generalistsA generalist species is able to thrive in a wide variety of environmental conditions and can make use of a variety of different resources . A specialist species can only thrive in a narrow range of environmental conditions or has a limited diet. Most organisms do not all fit neatly into either...
but a few are specialist feeders. Their ecological dominance may be measured by their
biomassBiomass, in ecology, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass, which is the mass of all species in the community. It can include microorganisms,...
, and estimates in different environments suggest that they contribute 15-20% (on average and nearly 25% in the tropics) of the total terrestrial animal biomass, which exceeds that of the vertebrates.
Ants range in size from 0.75 millimetre, the largest species being the fossil
Titanomyrma giganteumTitanomyrma was a genus of giant ant. The latest species to be discovered, T. lubei, was described in 2011, when a fossilized winged queen ant, comparable in size to hummingbirds, was found in Wyoming. This fossil is the first body of a giant ant found in the Western Hemisphere...
, the queen of which was 6 centimetres (2.4 in) long with a wingspan of 15 centimetres (5.9 in). Ants vary in colour; most ants are red or black, but a few species are green and some tropical species have a metallic lustre. More than 12,000 species are currently known (with upper estimates of about 22,000) (see the article
List of ant genera), with the greatest diversity in the tropics. Taxonomic studies continue to resolve the classification and systematics of ants. Online databases of ant species, including AntBase and the Hymenoptera Name Server, help to keep track of the known and newly described species. The relative ease with which ants can be sampled and studied in ecosystems has made them useful as
indicator speciesAn indicator species is any biological species that defines a trait or characteristic of the environment. For example, a species may delineate an ecoregion or indicate an environmental condition such as a disease outbreak, pollution, species competition or climate change...
in
biodiversityBiodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
studies.
Morphology
Ants are distinct in their
morphologyIn biology, morphology is a branch of bioscience dealing with the study of the form and structure of organisms and their specific structural features....
from other insects in having elbowed
antennaeAntennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....
,
metapleural glandMetapleural glands are secretory glands that are unique to ants and basal in the evolutionary history of ants. They are responsible for the production of an antibiotic fluid that then collects in in a reservoir on the posterior of the ant's alitrunk...
s, and a strong constriction of their second
abdominalIn vertebrates such as mammals the abdomen constitutes the part of the body between the thorax and pelvis. The region enclosed by the abdomen is termed the abdominal cavity...
segment into a node-like
petioleIn entomology, the term petiole is most commonly used to refer to the constricted first metasomal segment of members of the Hymenopteran suborder Apocrita; it may be used to refer to other insects with similar body shapes, where the metasomal base is constricted...
. The head,
mesosomaThe mesosoma is the middle part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the metasoma. It bears the legs, and, in the case of winged insects, the wings....
, and
metasomaThe metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the mesosoma. In insects, it contains most of the digestive tract, respiratory system, and circulatory system, and the apical segments are typically...
are the three distinct body segments. The petiole forms a narrow waist between their mesosoma (
thoraxThe thorax is the mid section of the insect body. It holds the head, legs, wings and abdomen. It is also called mesosoma in other arthropods....
plus the first abdominal segment, which is fused to it) and
gasterThe gaster is the bulbous posterior portion of the metasoma found in Apocrita Hymenoptera . This begins with abdominal segment III on most ants, but some make a postpetiole out of segment III, in which case the gaster begins with abdominal segment IV....
(abdomen less the abdominal segments in the petiole). The petiole can be formed by one or two nodes (the second alone, or the second and third abdominal segments).
Like other insects, ants have an
exoskeletonAn exoskeleton is the external skeleton that supports and protects an animal's body, in contrast to the internal skeleton of, for example, a human. In popular usage, some of the larger kinds of exoskeletons are known as "shells". Examples of exoskeleton animals include insects such as grasshoppers...
, an external covering that provides a protective casing around the body and a point of attachment for muscles, in contrast to the internal skeletons of humans and other
vertebrateVertebrates are animals that are members of the subphylum Vertebrata . Vertebrates are the largest group of chordates, with currently about 58,000 species described. Vertebrates include the jawless fishes, bony fishes, sharks and rays, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and birds...
s. Insects do not have lungs; oxygen and other gases like
carbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is a naturally occurring chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom...
pass through their exoskeleton through tiny valves called
spiracleSpiracles are openings on the surface of some animals that usually lead to respiratory systems.-Vertebrates:The spiracle is a small hole behind each eye that opens to the mouth in some fishes. In the primitive jawless fish the first gill opening immediately behind the mouth is essentially similar...
s. Insects also lack closed blood vessels; instead, they have a long, thin, perforated tube along the top of the body (called the "dorsal aorta") that functions like a heart, and pumps haemolymph towards the head, thus driving the circulation of the internal fluids. The
nervous systemThe nervous system is an organ system containing a network of specialized cells called neurons that coordinate the actions of an animal and transmit signals between different parts of its body. In most animals the nervous system consists of two parts, central and peripheral. The central nervous...
consists of a
ventral nerve cordThe ventral nerve cord makes up the nervous system of some phyla of the invertebrates, particularly within the nematodes, annelids and the arthropods. It usually consists of cerebral ganglia anteriorly with the nerve cords running down the ventral plane of the organism...
that runs the length of the body, with several ganglia and branches along the way reaching into the extremities of the appendages.
An ant's head contains many sensory organs. Like most insects, ants have compound eyes made from numerous tiny lenses attached together. Ants' eyes are good for acute movement detection but do not give a high
resolutionOptical resolution describes the ability of an imaging system to resolve detail in the object that is being imaged.An imaging system may have many individual components including a lens and recording and display components...
. They also have three small
ocelliA simple eye refers to a type of eye design or optical arrangement that contains a single lens which detect light. A "simple eye" is so-called in distinction from a multi-lensed "compound eye", and is not necessarily at all simple in the usual sense of the word...
(simple eyes) on the top of the head that detect light levels and polarization. Compared to vertebrates, most ants have poor-to-mediocre eyesight and a few subterranean species are completely blind. Some ants such as Australia's
bulldog antMyrmecia, often called bulldog ants, bull ants, inch ants, sergeant ants, jumper ants or jack-jumpers , is a genus of ants. Bull ants can grow to over in length, with the smallest species long...
, however, have exceptional vision. Two
antennaeAntennae in biology have historically been paired appendages used for sensing in arthropods. More recently, the term has also been applied to cilium structures present in most cell types of eukaryotes....
("feelers") are attached to the head; these organs detect chemicals, air currents and vibrations; they are also used to transmit and receive signals through touch. The head has two strong jaws, the
mandiblesInsect mandibles are a pair of appendages near the insect’s mouth, and the most anterior of the three pairs of oral appendages . Their function is typically to grasp, crush, or cut the insect’s food, or to defend against predators or rivals...
, used to carry food, manipulate objects, construct nests, and for defence. In some species a small pocket (infrabuccal chamber) inside the mouth stores food, so it can be passed to other ants or their larvae.
All six
legsThe arthropod leg is a form of jointed appendage of arthropods, usually used for walking. Many of the terms used for arthropod leg segments are of Latin origin, and may be confused with terms for bones: coxa , trochanter , femur, tibia, tarsus, ischium, metatarsus, carpus, dactylus ,...
are attached to the
mesosomaThe mesosoma is the middle part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the metasoma. It bears the legs, and, in the case of winged insects, the wings....
("thorax"). A hooked claw at the end of each leg helps ants to climb and hang onto surfaces. Most queens and male ants have
wingsInsects are the only group of invertebrates known to have evolved flight. Insects possess some remarkable flight characteristics and abilities, still far superior to attempts by humans to replicate their capabilities. Even our understanding of the aerodynamics of flexible, flapping wings and how...
; queens shed the wings after the
nuptial flightNuptial flight is an important phase in the reproduction of most ant, termite and some bee species. During the flight, virgin queens mate with males and then land to start a new colony, or, in the case of honey bees, continue the planned succession of an existing hived colony.- Before the flight :A...
, leaving visible stubs, a distinguishing feature of queens. However, wingless queens (ergatoids) and males occur in a few species.
The
metasomaThe metasoma is the posterior part of the body, or tagma, of arthropods whose body is composed of three parts, the other two being the prosoma and the mesosoma. In insects, it contains most of the digestive tract, respiratory system, and circulatory system, and the apical segments are typically...
(the "abdomen") of the ant houses important internal organs, including those of the reproductive, respiratory (tracheae) and excretory systems. Workers of many species have their
egg-laying structuresThe ovipositor is an organ used by some animals for oviposition, i.e., the laying of eggs. It consists of a maximum of three pairs of appendages formed to transmit the egg, to prepare a place for it, and to place it properly...
modified into
stingsA sting, sometimes called a stinger in the US, is a sharp organ or body part found in various animals that delivers some kind of venom . A true sting differs from other piercing structures in that it pierces by its own action and injects venom, as opposed to teeth, which pierce by the force of...
that are used for subduing
preyIn ecology, predation describes a biological interaction where a predator feeds on its prey . Predators may or may not kill their prey prior to feeding on them, but the act of predation always results in the death of its prey and the eventual absorption of the prey's tissue through consumption...
and defending their nests.
Polymorphism
In the colonies of a few ant species, there are physical castes—workers in distinct size-classes, called minor, median, and major workers. Often the larger ants have disproportionately larger heads, and correspondingly stronger
mandiblesInsect mandibles are a pair of appendages near the insect’s mouth, and the most anterior of the three pairs of oral appendages . Their function is typically to grasp, crush, or cut the insect’s food, or to defend against predators or rivals...
. Such individuals are sometimes called "soldier" ants because their stronger mandibles make them more effective in fighting, although they are still workers and their "duties" typically do not vary greatly from the minor or median workers. In a few species the median workers are absent, creating a sharp divide between the minors and majors.
Weaver antWeaver ants or Green ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae . Weaver ants are obligately arboreal and are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk...
s, for example, have a distinct bimodal size distribution. Some other species show continuous variation in the size of workers. The smallest and largest workers in
Pheidologeton diversus show nearly a 500-fold difference in their dry-weights. Workers cannot mate; however, because of the haplodiploid sex-determination system in ants, workers of a number of species can lay unfertilised eggs that become fully fertile haploid males. The role of workers may change with their age and in some species, such as honeypot ants, young workers are fed until their gasters are distended, and act as living food storage vessels. These food storage workers are called
repletes. This polymorphism in morphology and behaviour of workers was initially thought to be determined by environmental factors such as nutrition and hormones which led to different
developmental pathsMorphogenesis , is the biological process that causes an organism to develop its shape...
; however, genetic differences between worker castes have been noted in
Acromyrmex sp. These polymorphisms are caused by relatively small genetic changes; differences in a single gene of
Solenopsis invicta can decide whether the colony will have single or multiple queens. The Australian
jack jumper antThe jack jumper ant, hopper ant, jumper ant or jumping jack, Myrmecia pilosula, is a species of bull ant that is native to Australia...
(
Myrmecia pilosula) has only a single pair of chromosomes (males have just one chromosome as they are haploid), the lowest number known for any animal, making it an interesting subject for studies in the genetics and developmental biology of social insects.
Development and reproduction
The life of an ant starts from an
eggAn egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
. If the egg is fertilised, the progeny will be female (diploid); if not, it will be male (haploid). Ants develop by complete metamorphosis with the
larvaA larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
l stages passing through a
pupaA pupa is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation. The pupal stage is found only in holometabolous insects, those that undergo a complete metamorphosis, going through four life stages; embryo, larva, pupa and imago...
l stage before emerging as an adult. The larva is largely immobile and is fed and cared for by workers. Food is given to the larvae by
trophallaxisTrophallaxis is the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community through mouth-to-mouth or anus-to-mouth feeding. It is most highly developed in social insects such as ants, termites, wasps and bees. The word was introduced by the entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1918...
, a process in which an ant
regurgitatesRegurgitation is the expulsion of material from the mouth, pharynx, or esophagus, usually characterized by the presence of undigested food or blood.Regurgitation is used by a number of species to feed their young...
liquid food held in its
cropA crop is a thin-walled expanded portion of the alimentary tract used for the storage of food prior to digestion that is found in many animals, including gastropods, earthworms, leeches, insects, birds, and even some dinosaurs.- Bees :Cropping is used by bees to temporarily store nectar of flowers...
. This is also how adults share food, stored in the "social stomach", among themselves. Larvae may also be provided with solid food such as
trophic eggA trophic egg is an egg which is not laid for reproduction but for nutrition, often for offspring hatched from regular eggs. Trophic eggs are usually unfertilised....
s, pieces of prey and seeds brought back by foraging workers and may even be transported directly to captured prey in some species. The larvae grow through a series of
moultIn biology, moulting or molting , also known as sloughing, shedding, or for some species, ecdysis, is the manner in which an animal routinely casts off a part of its body , either at specific times of year, or at specific points in its life cycle.Moulting can involve the epidermis , pelage...
s and enter the pupal stage. The pupa has the appendages free and not fused to the body as in a butterfly pupa. The differentiation into queens and workers (which are both female), and different castes of workers (when they exist), is influenced in some species by the nutrition the larvae obtain. Genetic influences and the
control of gene expressionA polyphenic trait is a trait for which multiple, discrete phenotypes can arise from a single genotype as a result of differing environmental conditions.-Definition:A polyphenism is a biological mechanism that causes a trait to be polyphenic...
by the developmental environment are complex and the determination of caste continues to be a subject of research. Larvae and pupae need to be kept at fairly constant temperatures to ensure proper development, and so are often moved around the various brood chambers within the colony.
A new worker spends the first few days of its adult life caring for the queen and young. It then graduates to digging and other nest work, and later to defending the nest and foraging. These changes are sometimes fairly sudden, and define what are called temporal castes. An explanation for the sequence is suggested by the high casualties involved in foraging, making it an acceptable risk only for ants that are older and are likely to die soon of natural causes.
Most ant species have a system in which only the queen and breeding females have the ability to mate. Contrary to popular belief, some ant nests have multiple queens while others can exist without queens. Workers with the ability to reproduce are called "gamergates" and colonies that lack queens are then called gamergate colonies; colonies with queens are said to be queen-right. The winged male ants, called drones, emerge from pupae along with the breeding females (although some species, like
army antThe name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant...
s, have wingless queens), and do nothing in life except eat and mate. Most ants are univoltine, producing a new generation each year. During the species specific breeding period, new reproductives, winged males and females leave the colony in what is called a
nuptial flightNuptial flight is an important phase in the reproduction of most ant, termite and some bee species. During the flight, virgin queens mate with males and then land to start a new colony, or, in the case of honey bees, continue the planned succession of an existing hived colony.- Before the flight :A...
. Typically, the males take flight before the females. Males then use visual cues to find a common mating ground, for example, a landmark such as a pine tree to which other males in the area converge. Males secrete a mating pheromone that females follow. Females of some species mate with just one male, but in some others they may mate with anywhere from one to ten or more different males. Mated females then seek a suitable place to begin a colony. There, they break off their wings and begin to lay and care for eggs. The females store the
spermA spermatozoon is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote...
they obtain during their nuptial flight to selectively fertilise future eggs. The first workers to hatch are weak and smaller than later workers, but they begin to serve the colony immediately. They enlarge the nest, forage for food and care for the other eggs. This is how new colonies start in most species. Species that have multiple queens may have a queen leaving the nest along with some workers to found a colony at a new site, a process akin to swarming in honeybees.
A wide range of reproductive strategies have been noted in ant species. Females of many species are known to be capable of reproducing asexually through
thelytokous parthenogenesisThelytoky comes from the Greek thely, meaning "female", and tokos, meaning "birth". Thelytokous parthenogenesis is a type of parthenogenesis in which females are produced from unfertilized eggs. It is rare in the animal kingdom and has only been reported in about 1500 species...
and one species,
Mycocepurus smithiiMycocepurus smithii is an attine fungus-growing ant from Latin America whose species consists exclusively of females which reproduce asexually. The queen reproduces by parthenogenesis and all ants in a colony are female clones of the queen. The ants cultivate a garden of fungus inside their colony...
is known to be all-female.
Ant colonies can be long-lived. The queens can live for up to 30 years, and workers live from 1 to 3 years. Males, however, are more transitory, and survive only a few weeks. Ant queens are estimated to live 100 times longer than solitary insects of a similar size.
Ants are active all year long in the tropics but, in cooler regions, survive the winter in a state of dormancy or inactivity. The forms of inactivity are varied and some temperate species have larvae going into the inactive state (
diapauseDiapause is the delay in development in response to regularly and recurring periods of adverse environmental conditions. It is considered to be a physiological state of dormancy with very specific initiating and inhibiting conditions...
), while in others, the adults alone pass the winter in a state of reduced activity.
Communication
Ants communicate with each other using
pheromoneA pheromone is a secreted or excreted chemical factor that triggers a social response in members of the same species. Pheromones are chemicals capable of acting outside the body of the secreting individual to impact the behavior of the receiving individual...
s. These chemical signals are more developed in ants than in other hymenopteran groups. Like other insects, ants perceive smells with their long, thin and mobile antennae. The paired antennae provide information about the direction and intensity of scents. Since most ants live on the ground, they use the soil surface to leave pheromone trails that can be followed by other ants. In species that forage in groups, a forager that finds food marks a trail on the way back to the colony; this trail is followed by other ants, these ants then reinforce the trail when they head back with food to the colony. When the food source is exhausted, no new trails are marked by returning ants and the scent slowly dissipates. This behaviour helps ants deal with changes in their environment. For instance, when an established path to a food source is blocked by an obstacle, the foragers leave the path to explore new routes. If an ant is successful, it leaves a new trail marking the shortest route on its return. Successful trails are followed by more ants, reinforcing better routes and gradually finding the best path.
Ants use pheromones for more than just making trails. A crushed ant emits an alarm pheromone that sends nearby ants into an attack frenzy and attracts more ants from further away. Several ant species even use "propaganda pheromones" to confuse enemy ants and make them fight among themselves. Pheromones are produced by a wide range of structures including Dufour's glands, poison glands and glands on the hindgut, pygidium, rectum, sternum and hind tibia. Pheromones are also exchanged mixed with food and passed by
trophallaxisTrophallaxis is the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community through mouth-to-mouth or anus-to-mouth feeding. It is most highly developed in social insects such as ants, termites, wasps and bees. The word was introduced by the entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1918...
, transferring information within the colony. This allows other ants to detect what task group (
e.g., foraging or nest maintenance) other colony members belong to. In ant species with queen castes, workers begin to raise new queens in the colony when the dominant queen stops producing a specific pheromone.
Some ants produce sounds by
stridulationStridulation is the act of producing sound by rubbing together certain body parts. This behavior is mostly associated with insects, but other animals are known to do this as well, such as a number of species of fishes, snakes and spiders...
, using the gaster segments and their mandibles. Sounds may be used to communicate with colony members or with other species.
Defence
- See also Insect defences
Insects have a wide variety of predators, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, carnivorous plants, and other arthropods. The great majority of individuals born do not survive to reproductive age, with perhaps 50% of this mortality rate attributed to predation. In order to deal with this...
Ants attack and defend themselves by biting and, in many species, by stinging, often injecting or spraying chemicals like
formic acidFormic acid is the simplest carboxylic acid. Its chemical formula is HCOOH or HCO2H. It is an important intermediate in chemical synthesis and occurs naturally, most notably in the venom of bee and ant stings. In fact, its name comes from the Latin word for ant, formica, referring to its early...
. Bullet ants (
ParaponeraParaponera is a genus of ant consisting of a single species, commonly known as the lesser giant hunting ant, conga ant, or bullet ant , named on account of its powerful and potent sting, which is said to be as painful as being shot with a bullet. It inhabits humid lowland rainforests from Nicaragua...
), located in
CentralCentral America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...
and
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, are considered to have the most painful sting of any insect, although it is usually not fatal to humans. This sting is given the highest rating on the
Schmidt Sting Pain IndexThe Schmidt Sting Pain Index is a pain scale rating the relative pain caused by different Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center in Arizona...
. The sting of
Jack jumper antThe jack jumper ant, hopper ant, jumper ant or jumping jack, Myrmecia pilosula, is a species of bull ant that is native to Australia...
s can be fatal, and an antivenom has been developed.
Fire antFire ants are a variety of stinging ants with over 285 species worldwide. They have several common names, including ginger ants, tropical fire ants and red ants.- Appearance :...
s,
SolenopsisFire ants are a variety of stinging ants with over 285 species worldwide. They have several common names, including ginger ants, tropical fire ants and red ants.- Appearance :...
spp., are unique in having a poison sac containing
piperidinePiperidine is an organic compound with the molecular formula 5NH. This heterocyclic amine consists of a six-membered ring containing five methylene units and one nitrogen atom...
alkaloids. Their stings are painful and can be dangerous to hypersensitive people.
Trap-jaw ants of the genus
OdontomachusOdontomachus is a genus of carnivorous ants found in the tropics and subtropics throughout the world.-Overview:Commonly known as trap-jaw ants, species in Odontomachus have a pair of large, straight mandibles capable of opening 180 degrees...
are equipped with mandibles called trap-jaws, which snap shut faster than any other predatory
appendageIn invertebrate biology, an appendage is an external body part, or natural prolongation, that protrudes from an organism's body . It is a general term that covers any of the homologous body parts that may extend from a body segment...
s within the animal kingdom. One study of
Odontomachus bauriOdontomachus bauri is a species of ponerinae antknown as trap jaw ants. The trap jaw consists of mandibles which contain a spring-loaded catch mechanism....
recorded peak speeds of between 126 and 230 km/h (78 - 143 mph), with the jaws closing within 130
microsecondA microsecond is an SI unit of time equal to one millionth of a second. Its symbol is µs.A microsecond is equal to 1000 nanoseconds or 1/1000 millisecond...
s on average. The ants were also observed to use their jaws as a
catapultA catapult is a device used to throw or hurl a projectile a great distance without the aid of explosive devices—particularly various types of ancient and medieval siege engines. Although the catapult has been used since ancient times, it has proven to be one of the most effective mechanisms during...
to eject intruders or fling themselves backwards to escape a threat. Before the strike, the ant opens its mandibles extremely widely and locks them in this position by an internal mechanism. Energy is stored in a thick band of
muscleMuscle is a contractile tissue of animals and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to...
and explosively released when triggered by the stimulation of
sensoryIn a sensory system, a sensory receptor is a sensory nerve ending that responds to a stimulus in the internal or external environment of an organism...
hairs on the inside of the mandibles. The mandibles also permit slow and fine movements for other tasks. Trap-jaws are also seen in the following genera:
AnochetusAnochetus is a genus of carnivorous ants found in the tropics and subtropics throughout the world.- Species :This is an incomplete list of species in this genus....
,
Orectognathus, and
StrumigenysStrumigenys is a genus of myrmicine ants in the tribe Dacetini.-Biology:Strumigenys form small nests in soil, under or between rocks, or in and under logs or under cattle dung. Some species nest in association with other ants such as Bothriomyrmex mayri or Rhytidoponera metallica. Although they are...
, plus some members of the Dacetini tribe, which are viewed as examples of
convergent evolutionConvergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
. A Malaysian species of ant in the
Camponotus cylindricus groupA superspecies is a group of at least two more or less distinctive species with approximately parapatric distributions. Not all species complexes, whether cryptices or ring species are superspecies, and vice versa, but many are...
has enlarged mandibular glands that extend into their gaster. When disturbed, workers rupture the membrane of the gaster, causing a burst of secretions containing
acetophenoneAcetophenone is the organic compound with the formula C6H5CCH3. It is the simplest aromatic ketone. This colourless, viscous liquid is a precursor to useful resins and fragrances.-Production:Acetophenone can be obtained by a variety of methods...
s and other chemicals that immobilise small insect attackers. The worker subsequently dies. Suicidal defences by workers are also noted in a Brazilian ant
Forelius pusillus where a small group of ants leaves the security of the nest after sealing the entrance from the outside each evening.
In addition to defence against predators, ants need to protect their colonies from
pathogenA pathogen gignomai "I give birth to") or infectious agent — colloquially, a germ — is a microbe or microorganism such as a virus, bacterium, prion, or fungus that causes disease in its animal or plant host...
s. Some worker ants maintain the hygiene of the colony and their activities include undertaking or
necrophoryNecrophoresis or corpse-ridding or "undertaking" behavior, is a behaviour seen in ants and other social insects. The behavior helps maintain good sanitation in the insect colony...
, the disposal of dead nest-mates.
Oleic acidOleic acid is a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid found in various animal and vegetable fats. It has the formula CH37CH=CH7COOH. It is an odorless, colourless oil, although commercial samples may be yellowish. The trans isomer of oleic acid is called elaidic acid...
has been identified as the compound released from dead ants that triggers necrophoric behaviour in
Atta mexicana while workers of
Linepithema humile react to the absence of characteristic chemicals (dolichodial and
iridomyrmecinIridomyrmecin is a defensive chemical, classified as an iridoid, isolated from ants of the genus Iridomyrmex. Iridomyrmecin is also found in a variety of plants including Actinidia polygama....
) present on the cuticle of their living nestmates.
Nests may be protected from physical threats such as flooding and overheating by elaborate nest architecture. Workers of
Cataulacus muticus, an arboreal species that lives in plant hollows, respond to flooding by drinking water inside the nest, and excreting it outside.
Camponotus anderseniCamponotus anderseni is a species of mangrove ant found in northern Australia. There is little known about the ant species, Camponotus anderseni, because it is a relatively new discovery.-Description:...
which nests in the cavities of wood in mangrove habitats deals with submergence under water by switching to
anaerobic respirationAnaerobic respiration is a form of respiration using electron acceptors other than oxygen. Although oxygen is not used as the final electron acceptor, the process still uses a respiratory electron transport chain; it is respiration without oxygen...
.
Learning
Many animals can learn behaviours by imitation but ants may be the only group apart from
mammalMammals are members of a class of air-breathing vertebrate animals characterised by the possession of endothermy, hair, three middle ear bones, and mammary glands functional in mothers with young...
s where interactive teaching has been observed. A knowledgeable forager of
Temnothorax albipennisTemnothorax albipennis is a species of small ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It occurs in Europe and builds simple nests in rock crevices.-Description:...
leads a naive nest-mate to newly discovered food by the process of
tandem runningTandem running is a method of recruitment used by some species of ants, such as Temnothorax albipennis, to lead nestmates to food. It is dissimilar to other recruitment strategies used by social insects such as pheromone trails, in that ants using tandem running can recruit only one worker at a time...
. The follower obtains knowledge through its leading tutor. Both leader and follower are acutely sensitive to the progress of their partner with the leader slowing down when the follower lags, and speeding up when the follower gets too close.
Controlled experiments with colonies of
Cerapachys biroi suggest that individuals may choose nest roles based on their previous experience. An entire generation of identical workers was divided into two groups whose outcome in food foraging was controlled. One group was continually rewarded with prey, while it was made certain that the other failed. As a result, members of the successful group intensified their foraging attempts while the unsuccessful group ventured out less and less. A month later, the successful foragers continued in their role while the others moved to specialise in brood care.
Nest construction
Complex nests are built by many ants, but other species are nomadic and do not build permanent structures. Ants may form subterranean nests or build them on trees. These nests can be found in the ground, under stones or logs, inside logs, hollow stems or even acorns. The materials used for construction include soil and plant matter, and ants carefully select their nest sites;
Temnothorax albipennisTemnothorax albipennis is a species of small ant in the subfamily Myrmicinae. It occurs in Europe and builds simple nests in rock crevices.-Description:...
will avoid sites with dead ants, as these may indicate the presence of pests or disease. They are quick to abandon established nests at the first sign of threats.
The
army antThe name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant...
s of South America and the driver ants of Africa do not build permanent nests, but instead alternate between nomadism and stages where the workers form a temporary nest (
bivouacA bivouac is a structure formed by migratory army ant and driver ant colonies, where a nest is constructed out of the living ant worker's own bodies to protect the queen and larvae, and is later deconstructed as the ants move on....
) from their own bodies, by holding each other together.
Weaver antWeaver ants or Green ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae . Weaver ants are obligately arboreal and are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk...
(
Oecophylla spp.) workers build nests in trees by attaching leaves together, first pulling them together with bridges of workers and then inducing their larvae to produce silk as they are moved along the leaf edges. Similar forms of nest construction are seen in some species of
Polyrhachis.
Food cultivation
Most ants are generalist predators, scavengers and indirect herbivores, but a few have evolved specialised ways of obtaining nutrition.
Leafcutter antLeafcutter ants, a non-generic name, are any of 47 species of leaf-chewing ants belonging to the two genera Atta and Acromyrmex.These species of tropical, fungus-growing ants are all endemic to South, Central America, Mexico and parts of the southern United States.The Acromyrmex and Atta ants have...
s (
Atta and
AcromyrmexAcromyrmex is a genus of New World ants of the subfamily Myrmicinae. It contains 31 known species.-Distribution:This genera is found in South America and parts of Central America and the Caribbean islands.-Overview:...
) feed exclusively on a
fungusA fungus is a member of a large group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds , as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, Fungi, which is separate from plants, animals, and bacteria...
that grows only within their colonies. They continually collect leaves which are taken to the colony, cut into tiny pieces and placed in fungal gardens. Workers specialise in tasks according to their sizes. The largest ants cut stalks, smaller workers chew the leaves and the smallest tend the fungus. Leafcutter ants are sensitive enough to recognise the reaction of the fungus to different plant material, apparently detecting chemical signals from the fungus. If a particular type of leaf is toxic to the fungus the colony will no longer collect it. The ants feed on structures produced by the fungi called
gongylidiaGongylidia are hyphal swellings cultivated by fungus-growing ants. This fungus no longer exists naturally outside the ant colonies.Gongylidia are fed to the developing larvae and distributed throughout the colony to feed workers, soldiers, and the queen...
.
SymbioticSymbiosis is close and often long-term interaction between different biological species. In 1877 Bennett used the word symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens...
bacteria on the exterior surface of the ants produce antibiotics that kill bacteria that may harm the fungi.
Navigation
ForagingForage is plant material eaten by grazing livestock.Historically the term forage has meant only plants eaten by the animals directly as pasture, crop residue, or immature cereal crops, but it is also used more loosely to include similar plants cut for fodder and carried to the animals, especially...
ants travel distances of up to 200 metres (656.2 ft) from their nest and scent trails allow them to find their way back even in the dark. In hot and arid regions, day-foraging ants face death by desiccation, so the ability to find the shortest route back to the nest reduces that risk. Diurnal desert ants of the genus
Cataglyphis such as the
Sahara desert antThe Sahara Desert ant is a desert-dwelling ant of the genus Cataglyphis. It inhabits the Sahara Desert and is one of the most heat tolerant animals known to date. However, there are at least four other species of Cataglyphis living in the Sahara desert, for example C. bombycina, C. savigny, C....
navigate by keeping track of direction as well as distance travelled. Distances travelled are measured using an internal
pedometerA pedometer is a device, usually portable and electronic or electromechanical, that counts each step a person takes by detecting the motion of the person's hips...
that keeps count of the steps taken and also by evaluating the movement of objects in their visual field (
optical flowOptical flow or optic flow is the pattern of apparent motion of objects, surfaces, and edges in a visual scene caused by the relative motion between an observer and the scene. The concept of optical flow was first studied in the 1940s and ultimately published by American psychologist James J....
). Directions are measured using the position of the sun.
They
integratePath integration is the name given to the method thought to be used by animals for dead reckoning.Charles Darwin and J.J. Murphy first postulated an inertially-based navigation system in animals in 1873...
this information to find the shortest route back to their nest.
Like all ants they can also make use of visual landmarks when available as well as olfactory and tactile cues to navigate. Some species of ant are able to use the
Earth's magnetic fieldEarth's magnetic field is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth's inner core to where it meets the solar wind, a stream of energetic particles emanating from the Sun...
for navigation. Ants' compound eyes have specialised cells that detect polarised light from the Sun, which is used to determine direction.
These polarization detectors are sensitive in the
ultravioletUltraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than X-rays, in the range 10 nm to 400 nm, and energies from 3 eV to 124 eV...
region of the light spectrum. In some army ant species, a group of foragers that get separated from the main column can sometimes turn back on themselves and form a circular
ant millAn ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants separated from the main foraging party lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion. This has been reproduced in laboratories and the...
. The workers may then run around continuously until they die of exhaustion.
Locomotion
Worker ants do not have wings and reproductive females lose their wings after their mating flights in order to begin their colonies. Therefore, unlike their wasp ancestors, most ants travel by walking. Some species are capable of leaping. For example, Jerdon's jumping ant (
Harpegnathos saltatorHarpegnathos saltator, sometimes called Jerdon's jumping ant, is a species of ant found in India. They have long mandibles and have the ability to leap a few inches. They are large eyed and are active predators that hunt mainly in the early morning hours...
) is able to jump by synchronising the action of its mid and hind pairs of legs. There are several species of
gliding antGliding ants are arboreal ants of several different genera that are able to control the direction of their descent when falling from a tree. Living in the rainforest canopy like many other gliders, gliding ants use their gliding to return to the trunk of the tree they live on should they fall or be...
including
Cephalotes atratus; this may be a common trait among most arboreal ants. Ants with this ability are able to control the direction of their descent while falling.
Other species of ants can form chains to bridge gaps over water, underground, or through spaces in vegetation. Some species also form floating rafts that help them survive floods. These rafts may also have a role in allowing ants to colonise islands.
Polyrhachis sokolova Polyrhachis sokolova is a species of ant recently discovered to be capable of surviving tidal inundations.Researchers at the James Cook University gained attention in 2006 after finding and reporting this behavior. Polyrhachis sokolova nests in mud in mangrove swamps, regularly inundated by rising...
, a species of ant found in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n
mangroveMangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...
swamps, can swim and live in underwater nests. Since they lack
gillA gill is a respiratory organ found in many aquatic organisms that extracts dissolved oxygen from water, afterward excreting carbon dioxide. The gills of some species such as hermit crabs have adapted to allow respiration on land provided they are kept moist...
s, they breathe in trapped pockets of air in the submerged nests.
Cooperation and competition
Not all ants have the same kind of societies. The Australian bulldog ants are among the biggest and most
basalIn phylogenetics, a basal clade is the earliest clade to branch in a larger clade; it appears at the base of a cladogram.A basal group forms an outgroup to the rest of the clade, such as in the following example:...
of ants. Like virtually all ants they are
eusocialEusociality is a term used for the highest level of social organization in a hierarchical classification....
, but their social behaviour is poorly developed compared to other species. Each individual hunts alone, using its large eyes instead of its chemical senses to find prey.
Some species (such as
Tetramorium caespitum) attack and take over neighbouring ant colonies. Others are less expansionist but just as aggressive; they invade colonies to steal eggs or larvae, which they either eat or raise as workers/slaves. Extreme specialists among these slave-raiding ants, such as the Amazon ants, are incapable of feeding themselves and need captured workers to survive. Captured workers of the enslaved species
Temnothorax have evolved a counter strategy, destroying just the female pupae of the slave-making
Protomognathus americanusProtomognathus americanus is a species of ant that is 2-3 mm in size. It is endemic to the northeastern United States and adjacent Canadian regions. P. americanus is a species of slave maker ant. They do not forage for food, but instead 'scout workers' from the colony seek out nearby host colonies...
, but sparing the males (who don't take part in slave-raiding as adults).
Ants identify kin and nestmates through their scent, which comes from
hydrocarbonIn organic chemistry, a hydrocarbon is an organic compound consisting entirely of hydrogen and carbon. Hydrocarbons from which one hydrogen atom has been removed are functional groups, called hydrocarbyls....
-laced secretions that coat their exoskeletons. If an ant is separated from its original colony, it will eventually lose the colony scent. Any ant that enters a colony without a matching scent will be attacked.
Parasitic ant species enter the colonies of host ants and establish themselves as social parasites; species like
Strumigenys xenos are entirely parasitic and do not have workers, but instead rely on the food gathered by their
Strumigenys perplexa hosts. This form of parasitism is seen across many ant genera, but the parasitic ant is usually a species that is closely related to its host. A variety of methods are employed to enter the nest of the host ant. A parasitic queen can enter the host nest before the first brood has hatched, establishing herself prior to development of a colony scent. Other species use pheromones to confuse the host ants or to trick them into carrying the parasitic queen into the nest. Some simply fight their way into the nest.
A
conflict between the sexesSexual conflict occurs when the two sexes have conflicting optimal fitness strategies concerning reproduction, particularly the mode and frequency of mating, leading to an evolutionary arms race between males and females. The conflict encompasses the actions and behaviors of both sexes to influence...
of a species is seen in some species of ants with the reproductives apparently competing to produce offspring that are as closely related to them as possible. The most extreme form involves the production of clonal offspring. An extreme of sexual conflict is seen in
Wasmannia auropunctata, where the queens produce diploid daughters by thelytokous parthenogenesis and males produce clones by a process where a diploid egg loses its maternal contribution to produce haploid males that are clones of the father.
Relationships with other organisms
Ants form symbiotic associations with a range of species, including other ant species, other insects, plants, and fungi. They are preyed on by many animals and even certain fungi. Some arthropod species spend part of their lives within ant nests, either preying on ants, their larvae and eggs, consuming the ants' food stores, or avoiding predators. These
inquilineIn zoology, an inquiline is an animal that lives commensally in the nest, burrow, or dwelling place of an animal of another species. For example, some organisms such as insects may live in the homes of gophers and feed on debris, fungi, roots, etc...
s can bear a close resemblance to ants. The nature of this
ant mimicryAnt mimicry is mimicry of ants by other organisms. Ants are abundant all over the world, and insect predators that rely on vision to identify their prey such as birds and wasps normally avoid them, either because they are unpalatable, or aggressive. Thus some other arthropods mimic ants to escape...
(myrmecomorphy) varies, with some cases involving
Batesian mimicryBatesian mimicry is a form of mimicry typified by a situation where a harmless species has evolved to imitate the warning signals of a harmful species directed at a common predator...
, where the mimic reduces the risk of predation. Others show Wasmannian mimicry, a form of mimicry seen only in inquilines.
AphidAphids, also known as plant lice and in Britain and the Commonwealth as greenflies, blackflies or whiteflies, are small sap sucking insects, and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Aphids are among the most destructive insect pests on cultivated plants in temperate regions...
s and other
hemipteraHemiptera is an order of insects most often known as the true bugs , comprising around 50,000–80,000 species of cicadas, aphids, planthoppers, leafhoppers, shield bugs, and others...
n insects secrete a sweet liquid called
honeydewHoneydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids and some scale insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem, the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the gut's terminal opening. Honeydew is particularly common as a secretion in the Hemipteran...
when they feed on
plant sapSap is a fluid transported in xylem cells or phloem sieve tube elements of a plant. It transports water and nutrients throughout the plant....
. The sugars in honeydew are a high-energy food source, which many ant species collect. In some cases the aphids secrete the honeydew in response to the ants' tapping them with their antennae. The ants in turn keep predators away and will move the aphids between feeding locations. On migrating to a new area, many colonies will take the aphids with them, to ensure a continued supply of honeydew. Ants also tend
mealybugMealybugs are insects in the family Pseudococcidae, unarmored scale insects found in moist, warm climates. They are considered pests as they feed on plant juices of greenhouse plants, house plants and subtropical trees and also acts as a vector for several plant diseases.-Distribution:Mealybugs...
s to harvest their honeydew. Mealybugs can become a serious pest of pineapples if ants are present to protect mealybugs from their natural enemies.
Myrmecophilous (ant-loving)
caterpillarCaterpillars are the larval form of members of the order Lepidoptera . They are mostly herbivorous in food habit, although some species are insectivorous. Caterpillars are voracious feeders and many of them are considered to be pests in agriculture...
s of the family
LycaenidaeThe Lycaenidae are the second-largest family of butterflies, with about 6000 species worldwide, whose members are also called gossamer-winged butterflies...
(e.g., blues, coppers, or hairstreaks) are herded by the ants, led to feeding areas in the daytime, and brought inside the ants' nest at night. The caterpillars have a gland which secretes honeydew when the ants massage them. Some caterpillars produce vibrations and sounds that are perceived by the ants. Other caterpillars have evolved from ant-loving to ant-eating: these myrmecophagous caterpillars secrete a pheromone that makes the ants act as if the caterpillar is one of their own larvae. The caterpillar is then taken into the ants' nest where it feeds on the ant larvae.
Fungus-growing antsThe fungus-growing ants comprises all the known fungus-growing ant species in the world participating in ant-fungus mutualism. Leafcutter ants, including Atta and Acromyrmex, make up 2 of the genera.-See also:...
that make up the tribe Attini, including
leafcutter antLeafcutter ants, a non-generic name, are any of 47 species of leaf-chewing ants belonging to the two genera Atta and Acromyrmex.These species of tropical, fungus-growing ants are all endemic to South, Central America, Mexico and parts of the southern United States.The Acromyrmex and Atta ants have...
s, cultivate certain species of fungus in the
LeucoagaricusLeucoagaricus is a genus of fungi in the family Agaricaceae. The genus contains approximately 90 species.-External links:* at Index Fungorum...
or
LeucocoprinusLeucocoprinus is a genus of fungi in the family Agaricaceae. Its best known member is the yellow pot-plant mushroom , found worldwide. The type species is Leucocoprinus cepistipes...
genera of the
AgaricaceaeThe Agaricaceae are a family of basidiomycete fungi and includes the genus Agaricus, as well as basidiomycetes previously classified in the families Tulostomataceae, Lepiotaceae, and Lycoperdaceae. The genus contains 85 genera and 1340 species.-Genera:...
family. In this
ant-fungus mutualismAnt-fungus mutualism is a symbiosis seen in certain ant and fungal species, where ants actively cultivate fungus much like humans farm crops as a food source. In some species, the ants and fungi are dependent on each other for survival. The leafcutter ant is a well known example of this symbiosis...
, both species depend on each other for survival. The ant
Allomerus decemarticulatusThe Amazonian ant species Allomerus decemarticulatus is a social insect found in the tropics of South America. They were documented by Alain Dejean et al. in French Guiana, a small French territory on the coast of northeast South America just north of Brazil...
has evolved a three-way association with the host plant
Hirtella physophoraHirtella physophora is a species of plant in the Chrysobalanaceae family. It forms an association with the ant species, Allomerus decemarticulatus. The ants live in honeycombed cylinders they attach to the plant's stems. The plant nearly always has these ants associated with it....
(Chrysobalanaceae), and a sticky fungus which is used to trap their insect prey.
Lemon antsMyrmelachista schumanni, also known as the lemon ant, is a species of ant that is notable for the creation of Devil's garden. Using its own herbicide, it is able to shape its surroundings....
make
devil's gardenThis should not be confused with the Devil's gardensIn myrmecology and forest ecology, a devil's garden is a large stand of trees in the Amazon Rainforest consisting almost exclusively of a single species, Duroia hirsuta...
s by killing surrounding plants with their stings and leaving a pure patch of lemon ant trees (
Duroia hirsuta). This modification of the forest provides the ants with more nesting sites inside the stems of the
Duroia trees. Although some ants obtain nectar from flowers, pollination by ants is somewhat rare. Some plants have special nectar exuding structures, extrafloral nectaries that provide food for ants, which in turn
protectPlant defense against herbivory or host-plant resistance describes a range of adaptations evolved by plants which improve their survival and reproduction by reducing the impact of herbivores. Plants use several strategies to defend against damage caused by herbivores...
the plant from more damaging herbivorous insects. Species like the bullhorn acacia (
Acacia cornigeraAcacia cornigera, commonly known as Bullhorn Acacia , is a swollen-thorn acacia native to Mexico and Central America. The common name of "bullhorn" refers to the enlarged, hollowed-out, swollen thorns that occur in pairs at the base of leaves, and resemble the horns of a steer...
) in Central America have hollow thorns that house colonies of stinging ants (
Pseudomyrmex ferrugineaThe acacia ant is a species of ant of the genus Pseudomyrmex. These arboreal, wasp-like ants have a orange-brown body around 3 cm in length and very large eyes...
) that defend the tree against insects, browsing mammals, and
epiphyticAn epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...
vines. Isotopic labelling studies suggest that plants also obtain nitrogen from the ants. In return, the ants obtain food from protein and lipid rich Beltian bodies. Another example of this type of
ectosymbiosisEctosymbiosis is symbiosis in which the symbiont lives on the body surface of the host, including internal surfaces such as the lining of the digestive tube and the ducts of glands....
comes from the
MacarangaMacaranga is a large genus of Old World tropical trees of the family Euphorbiaceae and the only genus in the subtribe Macaranginae. Native to Africa, Australasia, Asia and the South Pacific, the genus comprises over 300 different species. These plants are noted for being recolonizers...
tree, which has stems adapted to house colonies of
CrematogasterCrematogaster is an ecologically diverse genus of ants found worldwide, which are characterised by a distinctive heart-shaped gaster , which gives one of their common names, Valentine Ant. It is the only genus of the tribus Crematogastrini. Most of species are arboreal...
ants.
Many tropical tree species have seeds that are dispersed by ants. Seed dispersal by ants or
myrmecochoryMyrmecochory is seed dispersal by ants, an ecologically significant ant-plant interaction with worldwide distribution. Myrmecochorous plants produce seeds with elaiosomes, a term encompassing various external appendages or "food bodies" rich in lipids, amino acid, or other nutrients that are...
is widespread and new estimates suggest that nearly 9% of all plant species may have such ant associations. Some plants in fire-prone grassland systems are particularly dependent on ants for their survival and dispersal as the seeds are transported to safety below the ground. Many ant-dispersed seeds have special external structures,
elaiosomeElaiosomes are fleshy structures that are attached to the seeds of many plant species. The elaiosome is rich in lipids and proteins, and may be variously shaped. Many plants have elaiosomes to attract ants, which take the seed to their nest and feed the elaiosome to their larvae...
s, that are sought after by ants as food. A
convergenceConvergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...
, possibly a form of mimicry, is seen in the eggs of stick insects. They have an edible elaiosome-like structure and are taken into the ant nest where the young hatch.
Most ants are predatory and some prey on and obtain food from other social insects including other ants. Some species specialise in preying on termites (
Megaponera and
Termitopone) while a few Cerapachyinae prey on other ants. Some termites, including
Nasutitermes cornigerNasutitermes corniger is a species of arboreal termite that is endemic to the neotropics. It is very closely related to Nasutitermes ephratae.The species has been studied relatively intensively, particularly on Barro Colorado Island, Panama...
, form associations with certain ant species to keep away other predatory ant species. The tropical wasp
Mischocyttarus drewseni coats the pedicel of its nest with an ant-repellant chemical. It is suggested that many tropical wasps may build their nests in trees and cover them to protect themselves from ants. Stingless bees (
Trigona and
MeliponaMelipona is a genus of stingless bees. These are widespread in warm areas of the Neotropics, from Sinaloa and Tamaulipas to Tucumán and Misiones . At least 40 species are known....
) use chemical defences against ants.
Army antThe name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant...
s forage in a wide roving column attacking any animals in that path that are unable to escape.
Eciton burchelliiEciton burchellii is the predominant species of the genus Eciton and a type of New World army ant. Distinct in its expansive, highly organized swarm raids, it is often considered the archetypal species of "army ant" — so much that the term has become its common name — and remains one of...
is the swarming ant most commonly attended by "
ant-followingAnt-followers are birds that feed by following swarms of army ants and take prey flushed by those ants. The best known ant-followers are 18 species of antbird in the family Thamnophilidae, but other families of birds may follow ants including thrushes, chats, ant-tanagers, cuckoos, and...
" birds such as
antbirdThe antbirds are a large family, Thamnophilidae, of passerine birds found across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. There are more than 200 species, known variously as antshrikes, antwrens, antvireos, fire-eyes, bare-eyes and bushbirds...
s and
woodcreeperThe woodcreepers comprise a subfamily of sub-oscine passerine birds endemic to the Neotropics. They have traditionally been considered a distinct family Dendrocolaptidae, but most authorities now place them as a subfamily of the ovenbirds...
s.
Flies in the Old World genus
BengaliaBengalia is a genus of blow flies in the family Calliphoridae with one authority considering the genus to belong to a separate family Bengaliidae. These bristly and, unlike the greens and blues of most calliphorids, dull coloured flies, are especially noted for their relationship to ants...
(Calliphoridae) prey on ants and are kleptoparasites, snatching prey or brood from the mandibles of adult ants. Wingless and legless females of the
Malaysian phorid fly (
Vestigipoda myrmolarvoidea) live in the nests of ants of the genus
AenictusThe army ant genus Aenictus is an enigmatic group known from Africa, tropical Asia, and Queensland. There are some 100 species presently recognized, though many other names are applied at the rank of subspecies...
and are cared for by the ants.
Fungi in the genera
CordycepsCordyceps is a genus of ascomycete fungi that includes about 400 described species. All Cordyceps species are endoparasitoids, mainly on insects and other arthropods ; a few are parasitic on other fungi. The best known species of the genus is Cordyceps sinensis, first recorded as yartsa gunbu in...
and
Ophiocordyceps infect ants, causing them to climb up plants and sink their mandibles into plant tissue. The fungus kills the ant, grows on its remains, and produces a fruiting body. It appears that the fungus alters the behaviour of the ant to help disperse its spores in a microhabitat that best suits the fungus.
StrepsipteraThe Strepsiptera are an order of insects with ten families making up about 600 species...
n parasites also manipulate their ant host to climb grass stems, to help the parasite find mates. A nematode (
Myrmeconema neotropicum) that infects canopy ants (
Cephalotes atratus) causes the black coloured gasters of workers to turn red. The parasite also alters the behaviour of the ant, and makes them carry their gasters high. The conspicuous red gasters are mistaken by birds for ripe fruits such as
Hyeronima alchorneoides and eaten. The droppings of the bird are collected by other ants and fed to their young leading to the further spread of the nematode.
South American
poison dart frogPoison dart frog is the common name of a group of frogs in the family Dendrobatidae which are native to Central and South America. These species are diurnal and often have brightly-colored bodies...
s in the genus
DendrobatesDendrobates is a genus of poison dart frogs native to South America. It once contained all poison dart frogs; until recently, frogs such as Dendrobates pumilio and Dendrobates terribilis were scientifically valid names...
feed mainly on ants, and the toxins in their skin may come from the ants. Several South American
antbirdThe antbirds are a large family, Thamnophilidae, of passerine birds found across subtropical and tropical Central and South America, from Mexico to Argentina. There are more than 200 species, known variously as antshrikes, antwrens, antvireos, fire-eyes, bare-eyes and bushbirds...
s follow army ants to feed on the insects that are flushed from cover by the foraging ants. This behaviour was once considered mutualistic, but later studies show that it is instead
kleptoparasiticKleptoparasitism or cleptoparasitism is a form of feeding in which one animal takes prey or other food from another that has caught, collected, or otherwise prepared the food, including stored food...
, with the birds stealing prey. Birds indulge in a peculiar behaviour called
antingIn the behavior called anting, birds rub insects on their feathers, usually ants, which secrete liquids containing chemicals such as formic acid, that can act as an insecticide, miticide, fungicide, bactericide, or to make them edible by removing the distasteful acid. It possibly also supplements...
that is as yet not fully understood. Here birds rest on ant nests, or pick and drop ants onto their wings and feathers; this may remove ectoparasites.
AnteaterAnteaters, also known as antbear, are the four mammal species of the suborder Vermilingua commonly known for eating ants and termites. Together with the sloths, they compose the order Pilosa...
s,
pangolinA pangolin , also scaly anteater or Trenggiling, is a mammal of the order Pholidota. There is only one extant family and one genus of pangolins, comprising eight species. There are also a number of extinct taxa. Pangolins have large keratin scales covering their skin and are the only mammals with...
s and several
marsupialMarsupials are an infraclass of mammals, characterized by giving birth to relatively undeveloped young. Close to 70% of the 334 extant species occur in Australia, New Guinea, and nearby islands, with the remaining 100 found in the Americas, primarily in South America, but with thirteen in Central...
species in Australia have special
adaptationAn adaptation in biology is a trait with a current functional role in the life history of an organism that is maintained and evolved by means of natural selection. An adaptation refers to both the current state of being adapted and to the dynamic evolutionary process that leads to the adaptation....
s for living on a diet of ants. These adaptations include long, sticky tongues to capture ants and strong claws to break into ant nests.
Brown bearThe brown bear is a large bear distributed across much of northern Eurasia and North America. It can weigh from and its largest subspecies, the Kodiak Bear, rivals the polar bear as the largest member of the bear family and as the largest land-based predator.There are several recognized...
s (
Ursus arctos) have been found to feed on ants, and about 12%, 16%, and 4% of their faecal volume in spring, summer, and autumn, respectively, is composed of ants.
Relationship with humans
Ants perform many ecological roles that are beneficial to humans, including the suppression of pest populations and aeration of the
soilSoil is a natural body consisting of layers of mineral constituents of variable thicknesses, which differ from the parent materials in their morphological, physical, chemical, and mineralogical characteristics...
. The use of
weaver antWeaver ants or Green ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae . Weaver ants are obligately arboreal and are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk...
s in citrus cultivation in southern China is considered one of the oldest known applications of biological control. On the other hand, ants can become nuisances when they invade buildings, or cause economic losses.
In some parts of the world (mainly Africa and South America), large ants, especially
army antThe name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species, in different lineages, due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", in which huge numbers of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area, attacking prey en masse.Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant...
s, are used as surgical sutures. The wound is pressed together and ants are applied along it. The ant seizes the edges of the wound in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the head and mandibles remain in place to close the wound.
Some ants of the family Ponerinae have toxic venom and are of medical importance. The species include
Paraponera clavata (
Tocandira) and
Dinoponera spp. (false
Tocandiras) of South America and the
Myrmecia ants of Australia.
In
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, ants are used to help harvest
rooibosRooibos is a broom-like member of the legume family of plants growing in South Africa's fynbos.The generic name comes from the plant Calicotome villosa, aspalathos in Greek. This plant has very similar growth and flowers to the redbush...
(
Aspalathus linearis), which are small seeds used to make a herbal tea. The plant disperses its seeds widely, making manual collection difficult. Black ants collect and store these and other seeds in their nest, where humans can gather them
en masse. Up to half a pound (200 g) of seeds can be collected from one ant-heap.
Although most ants survive attempts by humans to eradicate them, a few are highly endangered. These are mainly island species that have evolved specialized traits and include the critically endangered
Sri Lankan relict antThe Sri Lankan relict ant is a species of evolutionarily ancient ant that is placed in a separate tribe of its own within the Formicidae family. The genus is monotypic, with the only species endemic to Sri Lanka where it is known from just a few locations...
(
Aneuretus simoni) and
Adetomyrma venatrix of Madagascar.
It has been estimated by E.O. Wilson that the total number of individual ants alive in the world at any one time is between one and ten quadrillion (short scale). According to this estimate, the total
biomassBiomass, in ecology, is the mass of living biological organisms in a given area or ecosystem at a given time. Biomass can refer to species biomass, which is the mass of one or more species, or to community biomass, which is the mass of all species in the community. It can include microorganisms,...
of all the ants in the world is approximately equal to the total biomass of the entire
human raceHuman Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...
.
As food
Ants and their larvae are eaten in different parts of the world. The eggs of two species of ants are the basis for the dish in Mexico known as
escamoles Escamoles are the larvae of ants of the genus Liometopum, harvested from the roots of the agave or maguey plant in Mexico. In some forms of Mexican cuisine, escamoles are considered a delicacy and are sometimes referred to as "insect caviar"...
. They are considered a form of insect
caviarCaviar, sometimes called black caviar, is a luxury delicacy, consisting of processed, salted, non-fertilized sturgeon roe. The roe can be "fresh" or pasteurized, the latter having much less culinary and economic value....
and can sell for as much as USD 40 per pound (USD 90/kg) because they are seasonal and hard to find. In the
ColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n department of
SantanderSantander is a department of Colombia. Santander inherited the name of one of the nine original states of the United States of Colombia. It is located in the central northern part of the country, east of the Magdalena River, bordered to the south and southeast by Boyacá, to the northeast by Norte...
,
hormigas culonas (roughly interpreted as "large-bottomed ants")
Atta laevigataAtta laevigata is one of about a dozen species of leafcutter ants in the genus Atta, found from Colombia south to Paraguay. This species is one of the largest leafcutter species, and can be recognized by the smooth and shining head of the largest workers in a colony...
are toasted alive and eaten.
In areas of
IndiaIndia , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and throughout Burma and
ThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, a paste of the green weaver ant (
Oecophylla smaragdinaOecophylla smaragdina is a species of arboreal ant found in Asia and Australia. They make nests in trees made of leaves stitched together using the silk produced by their larvae.Weaver ants may be red or green...
) is served as a condiment with curry. Weaver ant eggs and larvae as well as the ants themselves may be used in a Thai salad,
yum (ยำ), in a dish called
yum khai mod daeng (ยำไข่มดแดง) or red ant egg salad, a dish that comes from the Issan or north-eastern region of Thailand.
Saville-KentWilliam Saville-Kent was an English marine biologist.Born in Sidmouth, Devon, his childhood was marred by the death of his mother, the murder of his half-brother and conviction of his sister Constance to twenty years in prison...
, in the
Naturalist in Australia wrote "Beauty, in the case of the green ant, is more than skin-deep. Their attractive, almost sweetmeat-like translucency possibly invited the first essays at their consumption by the human species". Mashed up in water, after the manner of lemon squash, "these ants form a pleasant acid drink which is held in high favor by the natives of North Queensland, and is even appreciated by many European palates".
In his
First Summer in the Sierra,
John MuirJohn Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
notes that the
Digger IndiansPaiute refers to three closely related groups of Native Americans — the Northern Paiute of California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon; the Owens Valley Paiute of California and Nevada; and the Southern Paiute of Arizona, southeastern California and Nevada, and Utah.-Origin of name:The origin of...
of
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
ate the tickly acid gasters of the large jet-black
carpenter antCarpenter ants are large ants indigenous to many parts of the world. They prefer dead, damp wood in which to build nests. They do not eat it, however, unlike termites. Sometimes carpenter ants will hollow out sections of trees. The most likely species to be infesting a house in the United States...
s. The Mexican Indians eat the replete workers, or living honey-pots, of the honey ant (
MyrmecocystusMyrmecocystus is a North American genus of ants. It is one of five genera that includes honeypot ants. Worker ants keep and tend plerergates, which are other ants that store large quantities of nutritious fluid in their abdomens to feed the colony during famine times...
).
As pests
Some ant species are considered pests, and because of the adaptive nature of ant colonies, eliminating the entire colony is nearly impossible. Pest management is therefore a matter of controlling local populations, instead of eliminating an entire colony, and most attempts at control are temporary solutions.
Ants classified as pests include the
pavement antThe pavement ant, Tetramorium caespitum, is a common household pest. Its name comes from the fact that colonies usually make their homes in pavement. It is distinguished by one spine on the back, two nodes on the petiole, and grooves on the head and thorax ...
,
yellow crazy antThe yellow crazy ant is a species of ant, introduced accidentally to northern Australia and Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, that has wreaked ecological damage in both locations....
,
sugar antthumb|C. consobrinus worker antThe sugar ant —also known as the banded sugar ant—is a relatively large ant, identifiable by their orange-brown bodies, black head and mandibles. The sugar ants' name comes from their liking for sugar, but they are attracted to other savory food. They are commonly...
s, the
Pharaoh antThe pharaoh ant is a small yellow or light brown, almost transparent ant notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals. The origin of this "tramp" ant is uncertain, although favoured alternatives include West Africa and Indonesia...
, carpenter ants,
Argentine antThe Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, is a dark ant native to northern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and southern Brazil...
, odorous house ants,
red imported fire antSee main article Fire ant.The red imported fire ant , or simply RIFA, is one of over 280 species in the widespread genus Solenopsis...
and
European fire antMyrmica rubra, also known as the European fire ant or common red ant, is a species of ant of the genus Myrmica, found all over Europe and in some parts of North America and Asia. They are mainly red in colour, with slightly darker pigmentation on the head. The ants live under stones, fallen trees,...
. Populations are controlled using insecticide baits, either in granule or liquid formulations. Bait is gathered by the ants as food and brought back to the nest where the poison is inadvertently spread to other colony members through
trophallaxisTrophallaxis is the transfer of food or other fluids among members of a community through mouth-to-mouth or anus-to-mouth feeding. It is most highly developed in social insects such as ants, termites, wasps and bees. The word was introduced by the entomologist William Morton Wheeler in 1918...
.
Boric acidBoric acid, also called hydrogen borate or boracic acid or orthoboric acid or acidum boricum, is a weak acid of boron often used as an antiseptic, insecticide, flame retardant, as a neutron absorber, and as a precursor of other chemical compounds. It exists in the form of colorless crystals or a...
and
boraxBorax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, is an important boron compound, a mineral, and a salt of boric acid. It is usually a white powder consisting of soft colorless crystals that dissolve easily in water.Borax has a wide variety of uses...
are often used as
insecticideAn insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...
s that are relatively safe for humans. Bait may be broadcast over a large area to control species like the red fire ant that occupy large areas. Nests of red fire ants may be destroyed by following the ants' trails back to the nest and then pouring boiling water into it to kill the queen. This works in about 60% of the mounds and requires about 14 l (3 imp gal; 4 US gal) per mound.
In science and technology
MyrmecologistsMyrmecology is the scientific study of ants, a branch of entomology. Some early myrmecologists considered ant society as the ideal form of society and sought to find solutions to human problems by studying them. Ants continue to be a model of choice for the study of questions on the evolution of...
study ants in the laboratory and in their natural conditions. Their complex and variable social structures have made ants ideal
model organismA model organism is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena, with the expectation that discoveries made in the organism model will provide insight into the workings of other organisms. Model organisms are in vivo models and are widely used to...
s. Ultraviolet vision was first discovered in ants by
Sir John LubbockJohn Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury PC , FRS , known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was a polymath and Liberal Member of Parliament....
in 1881. Studies on ants have tested hypotheses in
ecologyEcology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
,
sociobiologySociobiology is a field of scientific study which is based on the assumption that social behavior has resulted from evolution and attempts to explain and examine social behavior within that context. Often considered a branch of biology and sociology, it also draws from ethology, anthropology,...
and have been particularly important in examining the predictions of theories of
kin selectionKin selection refers to apparent strategies in evolution that favor the reproductive success of an organism's relatives, even at a cost to the organism's own survival and reproduction. Charles Darwin was the first to discuss the concept of group/kin selection...
and
evolutionarily stable strategiesIn game theory and behavioural ecology, an evolutionarily stable strategy , which is sometimes also called an evolutionary stable strategy, is a strategy which, if adopted by a population of players, cannot be invaded by any alternative strategy that is initially rare. An ESS is an equilibrium...
. Ant colonies can be studied by rearing or temporarily maintaining them in
formicariaA formicarium or ant farm is a vivarium which is designed primarily for the study of ant colonies and how ants behave. Those who study ant behavior are known as myrmecologists.-History:...
, specially constructed glass framed enclosures. Individuals may be tracked for study by marking them with colours.
The successful techniques used by ant colonies have been studied in computer science and robotics to produce distributed and fault-tolerant systems for solving problems. This area of
biomimeticsBiomimetics is the study of the structure and function of biological systems as models for the design and engineering of materials and machines. It is widely regarded as being synonymous with biomimicry, biomimesis, biognosis and similar to biologically inspired design.-History:The term biomimetics...
has led to studies of ant locomotion, search engines that make use of "foraging trails", fault-tolerant storage and networking algorithms.
In culture
AnthropomorphisedAnthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
ants have often been used in fables and children's stories to represent industriousness and cooperative effort. They are also mentioned in religious texts. In the
Book of ProverbsThe Book of Proverbs , commonly referred to simply as Proverbs, is a book of the Hebrew Bible.The original Hebrew title of the book of Proverbs is "Míshlê Shlomoh" . When translated into Greek and Latin, the title took on different forms. In the Greek Septuagint the title became "paroimai paroimiae"...
in the
BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, ants are held up as a good example for humans for their hard work and cooperation.
AesopAesop was a Greek writer credited with a number of popular fables. Older spellings of his name have included Esop and Isope. Although his existence remains uncertain and no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a...
did the same in his fable
The Ant and the GrasshopperThe Ant and the Grasshopper, also known as The Grasshopper and the Ant , is one of Aesop's Fables, providing an ambivalent moral lesson about hard work and foresight. In the Perry Index it is number 373...
. In the Quran,
SulaymanSolomon , according to the Book of Kings and the Book of Chronicles, a King of Israel and according to the Talmud one of the 48 prophets, is identified as the son of David, also called Jedidiah in 2 Samuel 12:25, and is described as the third king of the United Monarchy, and the final king before...
is said to have heard and understood an ant warning other ants to return home to avoid being accidentally crushed by Sulayman and his marching army. In parts of Africa, ants are considered to be the messengers of the gods. Some
Native American mythologyNative American mythology is the body of traditional narratives associated with Native American religion from a mythographical perspective. Native American belief systems include many sacred narratives. Such spiritual stories are deeply based in Nature and are rich with the symbolism of seasons,...
, such as the
Hopi mythologyThe Hopi maintain a complex religious and mythological tradition stretching back over centuries. However, it is difficult to definitively state what all Hopis as a group believe. Like the oral traditions of many other societies, Hopi mythology is not always told consistently and each Hopi mesa, or...
, considers ants as the very first animals. Ant bites are often said to have curative properties. The sting of some species of
PseudomyrmexPseudomyrmex is a genus of stinging, wasp-like ants in the family Formicidae . They are large eyed, slender ants with an arboreal habitat. They are found exclusively in the New World in tropical and subtropical regions...
is claimed to give fever relief. Ant bites are used in the
initiationInitiation is a rite of passage ceremony marking entrance or acceptance into a group or society. It could also be a formal admission to adulthood in a community or one of its formal components...
ceremonies of some Amazon Indian cultures as a test of endurance.
Ant society has always fascinated humans and has been written about both humorously and seriously.
Mark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
wrote about ants in his
A Tramp AbroadA Tramp Abroad is a work of non-fiction travel literature by American author Mark Twain, published in 1880. The book details a journey by the author, with his friend Harris , through central and southern Europe...
. Some modern authors have used the example of the ants to comment on the relationship between society and the individual. Examples are
Robert FrostRobert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...
in his poem "Departmental" and
T. H. WhiteTerence Hanbury White was an English author best known for his sequence of Arthurian novels, The Once and Future King, first published together in 1958.-Biography:...
in his fantasy novel
The Once and Future KingThe Once and Future King is an Arthurian fantasy novel written by T. H. White. It was first published in 1958 and is mostly a composite of earlier works written in a period between 1938 and 1941....
. The plot in French entomologist and writer
Bernard WerberBernard Werber is a French science fiction writer active since the 1990s.-Novels:His style of writing mixes different literary genres, notably the saga, the science fiction of the inter-war years, and tracts of philosophy.In most of his novels, Bernard Werber uses the same form of construction,...
's
Les FourmisLes Fourmis is a 1991 science fiction novel by French writer Bernard Werber. It was released in English as Empire of the Ants. The book sold more than two million copies and has been translated into more than 30 languages...
science-fiction trilogy is divided between the worlds of ants and humans; ants and their behaviour is described using contemporary scientific knowledge. In more recent times, animated cartoons and 3D animated movies featuring ants have been produced including
AntzAntz is a 1998 American computer animated action adventure film produced by DreamWorks Animation. It features the voices of well-known actors such as Woody Allen, Sharon Stone, Jennifer Lopez, Sylvester Stallone, Dan Aykroyd, Anne Bancroft, Gene Hackman, Christopher Walken, and Danny Glover as...
,
A Bug's LifeA Bug's Life is a 1998 American computer animated adventure comedy film produced by Pixar and released by Walt Disney Pictures in the United States on November 25, 1998. A Bug's Life was the second Disney·Pixar feature film after Toy Story, and the third American computer-animated film after Toy...
,
The Ant BullyThe Ant Bully is a 2006 American computer-animated film written and directed by John A. Davis based on the 1999 children's book of the same name by John Nickle...
,
The Ant and the AardvarkThe Ant and the Aardvark is a series of 17 theatrical short cartoons produced at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and released by United Artists from 1969 to 1971.-Production:...
,
Atom AntAtom Ant is a cartoon ant and superhero, created by Hanna-Barbera in 1965. Atom costarred in The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show...
, and there is a
comic bookA comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
superhero called
Ant-ManAnt-Man is the name of several fictional characters appearing in books published by Marvel Comics. Ant-Man was originally the superhero persona of Hank Pym, a brilliant scientist who invented a substance that allowed him to change his size...
. Renowned
myrmecologistMyrmecology is the scientific study of ants, a branch of entomology. Some early myrmecologists considered ant society as the ideal form of society and sought to find solutions to human problems by studying them. Ants continue to be a model of choice for the study of questions on the evolution of...
E. O. WilsonEdward Osborne Wilson is an American biologist, researcher , theorist , naturalist and author. His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants....
wrote a short story, "
Trailhead" in 2010 for
The New YorkerThe New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
magazine, which describes the life and death of an ant-queen, and the rise and fall of her colony, from an ants' point of view.
The
Chinese characterChinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
for ant is a combination of two
logogramA logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonograms, which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantic categories.Logograms are often commonly known also as "ideograms"...
s that may be interpreted as "insect which behaves properly ". The traditional Chinese character
yǐ (蟻) used in
Japaneseis a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
shares this
etymologyEtymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
. In spoken
ChineseThe Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
the ant is usually referred to as
mǎyĭ .
From the late 1950s through the late 1970s,
ant farmsA formicarium or ant farm is a vivarium which is designed primarily for the study of ant colonies and how ants behave. Those who study ant behavior are known as myrmecologists.-History:...
were popular educational children's toys in the United States. Later versions use transparent gel instead of soil allowing greater visibility. In the early 1990s, the video game
SimAntSimAnt: The Electronic Ant Colony is a 1991 life simulation computer game by Maxis and Maxis' Third Product, focusing on ants. It was designed by Will Wright, maker of other 'Sim' games such as SimCity and The Sims...
, which simulated an ant colony, won the 1992
Codie awardThe CODiE awards are annual awards issued by the Software and Information Industry Association for excellence in software development within the software industry....
for "Best Simulation Program".
Ants are also quite popular inspiration for many science-fiction
insectoidInsectoid denotes any creature or object that shares a similar body or traits with common earth insects and arachnids. The term is a combination of "insect" and "-oid" . Compare "humanoid"....
s, such as the Formics of
Ender's GameEnder's Game is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The book originated as the short story "Ender's Game", published in the August 1977 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. Elaborating on characters and plot lines depicted in the novel, Card later wrote additional...
, the Bugs of
Starship TroopersStarship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein, first published as a serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and published hardcover in December, 1959.The first-person narrative is about a young soldier from the Philippines named Juan "Johnnie" Rico and his...
, the giant ants in the film
Them!, and ants mutated into super intelligence in
Phase IVPhase IV is an American science fiction film, made in 1974. It is the only feature-length film directed by the noted title designer Saul Bass. It starred Michael Murphy, Nigel Davenport and Lynne Frederick....
. In strategy games, ant-based species often benefit from increased production rates due to their single-minded focus, such as the Klackons in the
Master of OrionMaster of Orion is a turn-based, 4X science fiction computer strategy game released in 1993 by MicroProse on the MS-DOS and Mac OS operating systems. The purpose of the game is to lead one of ten races to dominate the galaxy through a combination of diplomacy and conquest while developing...
series of games or the ChCht in
Deadlock II. These characters are often credited with a
hive mindA group mind, hive mind or group ego in science fiction is a single consciousness occupying many bodies. Its use in literature goes back at least as far as Olaf Stapledon's science fiction novel Last and First Men ....
, a common misconception about ant colonies.
See also
- Ant robotics
Ant robotics is a special case of swarm robotics. Swarm robots are simple and cheap robots with limited sensing and computational capabilities. This makes it feasible to deploy teams of swarm robots and take advantage of the resulting fault tolerance and parallelism. Swarm robots cannot use...
- Ant stings
- International Union for the Study of Social Insects
International Union for the Study of Social Insects is an association of entomologists from different countries engaged in research of social insects...
- Myrmecological News
Myrmecological News is an independent, international, non-profit, peer-reviewed scientific journal devoted to all aspects of ant research...
(journal)
- Task allocation and partitioning of social insects
Task allocation and partitioning refers to the way that tasks are chosen, assigned, subdivided, and coordinated . Closely associated are issues of communication that enable these actions to occur....
- Ant colony optimization
In computer science and operations research, the ant colony optimization algorithm ' is a probabilistic technique for solving computational problems which can be reduced to finding good paths through graphs....
External links