Preparation of ants for winter is a serious and responsible stage of the whole life of an anthill. By and large, almost all the efforts of the ant family since spring are aimed at accumulating enough resources for experiencing winter and ensuring the release of a new generation of ants before the onset of frost. At the same time, many ants do not sleep at all in winter, as it may seem to an observer who does not see them for several months. Their lives continue to boil, though not as violently as in summer.
How ants prepare for winter has been studied in detail by many scientists. In addition, amateur myrmecologists who contain ants at home are so familiar with the subtleties of wintering each species, that today this process is considered in literal terms from all sides.
On a note
The science that ants study is called myrmecology.Accordingly, a specialist in studying one or another aspect of the life of ants is a mirmecologist.
Different ants overwinter in different conditions and at different times. A polar ant, for example, has to winter for 8–9 months a year, and in a few warm, snowless months it does not always have time to feed a new generation of larvae. However, the wintering of ants, even under such conditions, is usually quite successful.
On the other hand, ants living in the south — in Central Asia, Kazakhstan, and the Mediterranean — spend the winter months on one or two of the coldest months. And in transitional regions, for example, in Turkey and Asia Minor, they do not overwinter every year, but only under the most severe weather conditions. At the same time, they still prepare for winter at the end of the warm period - they collect seeds, settle an anthill, feed a large number of larvae.
It is interesting
The pharaoh’s usual ant for us — a small domestic pest — does not overwinter at all and is not preparing for winter. He comes from the tropics, where climatic conditions vary little throughout the year. And for this reason, in Russian latitudes, it can only live in a man’s dwelling - unable to winter, in natural conditions the colonies of pharaoh ants on the street in winter die out.
Where and how is wintering going
Ants winter in the same anthills, where all the rest of the time lives. Most often, cameras that are located deeper in the ground are used as wintering, since they maintain a more stable temperature throughout the winter.
All entrances to the anthill for the winter are carefully sealed with earth and dry parts of the plants so that no cold air enters through them. In warm regions during periods of thaw, individual entrances can be uncorked and insects run to the surface in search of food.
Some ants sleep in winter - this is the state of diapause, in which the functioning of the internal organs of insects is extremely reduced, but not stopped.
Other species remain active during wintering. As a rule, during this period they move a little and eat little. But at the same time, if larvae hibernate in an anthill, adults continue to feed them. Such ants are actively preparing for winter and collect the larvae in chambers with an optimal microclimate.
It is interesting
Ants that live in the harsh northern regions, winter with a strong supercooling - in some of them the body temperature can drop to minus 50 ° !.And the larvae of one of the ants in Kolyma had a minimum body temperature for insects in general - minus 58 ° C. In this case, the larvae did not stop metabolism. In fact, this is a peculiar natural phenomenon: at such low temperatures, all the fluids in the body of any other living creature freeze. In ants, on the occasion of cold weather, the amount of sugars in different body fluids sharply increases, as a result of which their freezing temperature constantly drops, and even at such extreme frosts they continue to remain liquids. Of course, in this state the ants practically lose mobility. We can say that they are sleeping.
In some species of ants, only adult individuals winter. As a rule, these differ in those species that do not have diapause, and insects in an anthill need to feed all year round. These ants are thoroughly preparing for winter - they make stocks consisting of seeds, dried fruits and other parts of plants.
The larvae of ants require protein food for feeding - other arthropods, for example - which adult insects cannot get them.Accordingly, by winter all the larvae of eggs laid in the spring have time to turn into adult ants, which leave for wintering. And in the spring, with the advent of the first protein food, the uterus begins to lay new eggs.
Working ants of such species in the winter make peculiar repairs in the anthill, expand the chambers, monitor the observance of the microclimate.
In ants living in northern latitudes, in a short summer the larvae do not have time to develop into adult insects. They have to winter in a supercooled state.
In especially extreme northerner ants that live at high altitudes, the larvae can winter twice or more before turning into adult ants. The third instar larvae, which are most resistant to temperature extremes, usually winter.
It is interesting
In its spread to the north, ants are limited only by a line, beyond which even in summer the land does not thaw deeper than 30 cm. Kamchatka ant, for example, can arrange anthills on bumps at a depth of 10 to 40 cm, and it is important for him that in this area the soil temperature in summer was sufficient for the development of its larvae.
The device is an anthill for wintering
An anthill in winter for those ants that do not hibernate is almost no different from its summer state. Only the dislocation of the insects themselves changes inside it: ants live a little deeper in winter, away from the cold surface of the soil. Sometimes they even have to make special wintering chambers.
Due to constant fluctuations in temperature on the surface, as well as due to frequent wetting of the upper layer of an anthill, insects have to constantly move and transfer part of their stocks. That is why life in the anthill in winter does not freeze even for a moment.
Forest ants, famous for the large size of their anthill-heaps, by winter they try to bring to the surface the greatest possible amount of land and debris in order to warm their house even more. This will allow them to winter in large enough quantities.
Ants begin to prepare for winter even in the hottest months of summer, gradually settling the inner chambers of the dwelling and collecting food for the winter.
According to the researchers, the ants do not have a hard taboo on the way out of the nest in the winter. They simply move within the temperatures at which the insect does not freeze.In most cases, such temperatures are maintained only inside the anthill. With the arrival of the spring thaw, the anthill is heated, and the ants can get to the exits. At a certain temperature of air insects uncork separate entrances and come to the surface. Sometimes it can happen in the middle of winter.
It is interesting
Particularly detailed is the life of an anthill being tracked in formicaria - artificial anthills with glass or plastic transparent walls. Amateurs containing ants in such cages are forced to winter them on balconies or in refrigerators. At this time, insects feed and regularly open the entrances to the anthill for airing. On the video below you can see such an anthill. Ants spend the winter in the same cells.
Home Ant Farm
Do ants make stocks for the winter
Almost all wintering ants make stocks for winter. Even representatives of species that winter in extreme conditions, due to stored plant and animal residues, live part of the autumn, when the anthill is already covered with snow, but the temperature in it does not fall to too low values.
Ants make stocks for the winter almost all the warm season. In most species of central Russia, the years occur in May-June, and immediately after it, some of the nutrients brought to the nest are placed in special chambers, which maintain low humidity and temperature.
It is interesting
Reaper ants living in the steppe areas in one ant hill gather up to a kilogram of various grains for food in winter. Almost all summer and autumn, they are preparing for winter.
As a rule, stocks are mainly composed of plant products - plant seeds, buds, flowers, soft green stems. They are stored for a long time, and have a high nutritional value.
Some ants, not wanting to part with delicacies, carry off even aphids under the ground, which continue to share their fall. Of course, aphids die from lack of food for several weeks, but that’s enough for ants.
It is interesting
For feeding uterus ants sometimes so-called trophic eggs are used. The uterus itself lays them in the summer, with an excess of feed, and until the winter they do not develop, but continue to retain a large amount of nutrients.Such eggs are a kind of protein canned food for insects.
In addition to aphids, many insects are inhabited by various insects - beetles, moths, their larvae - which secrete a nutritious and sweet secret that the ants like, and feed on ant supplies or even their eggs. In part, such neighbors also help adult ants to winter without hunger.
In the vast family of ants there are species that are strictly wintering on the northern borders of their range, and do not winter at all in the south. It is believed that the process of preparing for the wintering starts from the ants themselves in response to various environmental conditions: changing the length of the day and night, the overall composition of the feed and other factors. All this helps the insects to make the most effective use of all the opportunities for survival and reproduction that the environment gives them.
Forms farm do it yourself: video
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Good article!