Interesting facts from the life of ants

Ants are one of the most highly organized insects on the planet. Their ability to cooperate and self-sacrifice for the good of the colony, their high adaptability, an activity that resembles sensible complexity, all this has long attracted the attention of scientists. Today, science knows many interesting facts about ants, some of which are known only to a narrow circle of specialists, and some of them refute established myths. For example…

 

Ants are the most numerous insects on Earth

According to one of the world's most respected myrmecologists, Edward Wilson, between 1 and 10 quadrillion individuals of ants live on Earth today — that is, from 10 in the 15th degree to 10 in the 16th degree - individual ants.

Incredibly, but the fact is that for every living person there are about a million of these creatures, and their total mass is approximately equal to the total mass of all people.

On a note

Myrmecology - the science of ants.Accordingly, the myrmecologist is a scientist who mainly studies this group of insects. It is thanks to the works of such scientists that very interesting facts about ants became known that expanded the understanding of the science of these insects.

On the Pacific island of Christmas, there are about 2,200 ants and 10 entrances to the nest per square meter of soil surface. And, for example, in the savannas of West Africa, there are 2 billion ants and 740,000 nests per square kilometer!

No other group of insects reaches this population size and density.

 

Among the ants are the most dangerous insects in the world.

Perhaps, the inhabitants of equatorial Africa are not afraid of poisonous snakes, nor of large predators, nor of spiders, as stray ants- A column of several million insects, whose soldiers are armed with powerful jaws, destroys almost all life in its path. Such trips are the key to the survival of an anthill.

More interesting facts: stray ants are among the most large ants at all. The soldier can reach them in length of 3 cm, the uterus - 5 cm.

When residents of a village learn that such a colony must pass through their settlement,they leave home, taking with them all pets. It is necessary to forget a goat in the stall, and the ants bite it to death. But they also destroy all cockroaches, rats and mice in the villages.

But the ant-bullet is considered the most dangerous ant in the world: His 30 bites per kilogram of body weight are fatal. The pain of their bite exceeds the strength of those of the bites of any wasp, and is felt throughout the day.

The Indian tribes of South America for the dedication of the boy to the men on the hand of the initiate puts on the sleeve with the live ants placed in it. After being bitten, the boy’s hands are paralyzed and swollen for several days, sometimes shock happens and his fingers become black.

 

 

Ant eggs are not really eggs

The fact that in everyday life is called ant eggs, in fact - developing ant larvae. The eggs of the ants themselves are very small and are of no practical interest for humans.

But the larvae are readily eaten in Africa and Asia - this dish is rich in protein and fats. In addition, the larvae of ants - the ideal food for the chicks of various decorative birds.

 

Ants - famous delicacy

The most famous ant dish is the woody ant sauce, which is used in Southeast Asia as a seasoning.

In this regard, honey ants are very interesting.In each of their anthills there are from several tens to several hundred ants used by other members of the colony as food reservoirs. They are specially fed during the rainy season, their abdomen is filled with a mixture of water and sugars and swells to such an extent that the insect cannot move.

In the dry season, other individuals from the anthill lick the secret constantly secreted by these living barrels and can do without external food sources. Such ants are actively harvested where they live - in Mexico and in the south of the United States - and are eaten. They taste like honey.

Another interesting fact of a gastronomic nature: in Thailand and Myanmar, ant larvae are consumed as a delicacy and sold by weight in the markets. And in Mexico, the larvae of large ants eat the same way as in Russia fish eggs.

 

Ants and termites are completely different insects.

Indeed, ants belong to the order of Hymenoptera, and their close relatives are wasps, bees, sawflies and horsemen.

Termites are a rather isolated group of insects close to cockroaches. Some scientists even include them in a troop of cockroaches.

It is interesting

The complex social structure of the termitary, resembling that in an anthill, is just one example of convergence in the animal world, the development of similar traits among members of different groups who find themselves in similar conditions.

It is noteworthy that in equatorial Africa there lives a mammal — a naked digger — whose colonies also resemble ant colonies: only one female breeds in the diggers, and the rest of the individuals serve it, feed it and expand its burrows.

 

The vast majority of ants are females

All working ants and soldier ants in each anthill are females incapable of breeding. They develop from fertilized eggs, while males develop from unfertilized.

An interesting fact about ants: a working ant or future uterus will grow out of an egg, depending on how the larva feeds. Working ants themselves can decide how to feed the brood and how many future queen to feed.

Some species of ants there is no queen as such, and all working females can reproduce. There are some species in which several queens live in the nests. A classic example of this is the nests of domestic ants (Pharaoh).

 

Ant quagmire can live up to 20 years

The normal life of a uterus that has managed to establish a colony is 5-6 years, but some live to 12 or even 20 years! In the world of insects, this is a record: the majority of single insects, even of larger size, live on the strength of several months. Only in some cicadas and beetles, the total life expectancy, taking into account the larval stage, can reach 6-7 years.

This interesting fact from the life of ants does not mean at all that all uterus have such a lifespan: most fertilized females die after summer, and a significant part of the established colonies also die out for various reasons even in the first year of their existence.

 

There are slave owners ants

The connections of different ants with each other are so diverse that even people can sometimes envy them.

For example, in a whole Amazonian ant species, working ants do not know how to feed and care for the nest themselves. But they can attack the nests of other, smaller species of ants, and steal the larvae from them. Ants, developing from these larvae, will continue to care not for their uterus and soldiers.

In other species, this behavior has reached the point that the uterus simply penetrates into another anthill, kills the queen who lives there,and working ants recognize her as their own and care for her and her offspring. The anthill itself is then doomed: only females capable of capturing an anthill of another species will develop from the eggs of such a female, and with the death of all the working ants, the colony will become empty.

There are sparing cases of slavery. For example, for the base of the colony, the uterus kidnaps several pupae, and the ants that develop from them help it at the very beginning of the colony's development. Further the colony develops by the descendants of the uterus itself.

 

Ants can be trained

Interesting facts about ants associated with the phenomenon of learning, attract the close attention of many scientists.

For example, in some species of ants, those individuals who managed to find food, teach others to find a place with food. And if, for example, in bees, this information is transmitted in the process of a special dance, then the ant specifically teaches another to follow a specific route.

 

Video: ants build a living bridge with their bodies

Experiments have also verified that during training, the ant teacher reaches the desired point four times slower than he would have gotten to it on his own.

 

Ants know how to farm

This interesting feature of ants has long been known - South American leaf cutter ants use the most complex food chain in the animal world:

• some members of the colony gnaw off a large piece of wood and bring it to the anthill

• smaller individuals who never leave the colony chew the leaves, mix them with excrement and parts of a special mycelium
• The resulting mass is formed in special areas of the anthill - these beds - where mushrooms develop on it, providing ants with protein food.

It is interesting in ants that they do not eat the fruit bodies themselves - they feed on special growths of the mycelium. Some members of the colony constantly bite off the emerging fruit bodies, not allowing the mycelium to spend nutrients on useless legs and caps.

It is interesting

When the fertilized young female leaves the nest, she takes a tiny piece of mycelium in a special pocket on her head. Such a stock is the basis of the well-being of the future colony.

In addition to ants, only man and termites learned to cultivate other living organisms for their own good.

 

Relationships of ants and aphids

The herding inclinations of ants are known to many: some anthills depend so much on the flock of aphids that they die out too when they die out. Scientists believe that the secretion of a secret at one time was a defensive reaction of aphids from the attack of enemies, only the secret itself was sharply smelling and toxic.

But one day natural selection prompted pests that it is possible not to scare away ants, but to lure and force them to protect themselves. Thus arose a unique example of the symbiosis of two completely different groups of insects: aphids share sweet, healthy and nourishing secretions with ants, and ants protect them.

Aphid excretions that attract ants are called pady. In addition to her aphids, shepherds, worms, and some cicadas are divided with ants.

Interestingly, many insects have learned to isolate the secret that is attractive to ants in order to penetrate their nests. Some beetles, caterpillars and butterflies feed on the reserves of the ants themselves in the anthill, while the ants do not touch them precisely because of their ability to share the fall. Some of these guests in the anthills corny devour the larvae of ants, and the ants themselves are ready to forgive them for treachery for a drop of sweet secret.

The above are just some interesting facts about ants. In the biology of each species of these insects, you can find something unique and original.

Thanks to this uniqueness and the abundance of specific adaptive features, they managed to become one of the most numerous and advanced groups of arthropods in general.

 

Interesting video: the battle between two ant colonies