How many ants usually live and how is their life in an anthill

Without additional explanations, it is impossible to unequivocally answer the question of how many ants live: the life expectancy of ants depends on the species and on which caste each individual belongs to. But on average, entomologists give the following data:

• A worker ant lives from 1 to 3 years. At the same time, in smaller species, the life span of an ant is shorter than in large ones. And the ants that live in colder regions also live on average longer than the inhabitants of the tropics.
• Males of ants live only a few weeks. Their task is to participate in the pairing. In the future, they are destroyed either by ants from their own nest, or they die in the clutches of predators.
• Ant queen - the longest-serving member of the colony. In some species, the life span of the uterus can reach up to 20 years — this is 10–15 times longer than approximately the living ant lives.

Speaking how many years ants live, it is necessary to take into account the fact that some of their species, especially northern ones, hibernate for the winter. During this period, which in ants in Kolyma or Kamchatka lasts up to 9 months a year, the life activity of the ant organism practically stops.

Accordingly, three years in this mode is in the sum of active life even less than one year in the Amazon jungle. But in general, when assessing the life expectancy, it is necessary to take into account other features of the way of life of ants and the nuances of their biology.

 

Which ants live longer and which less

The life span of ants depends on several factors and circumstances:

• First of all - the type of ant. For example, workers pharaoh ants live an average of 2 months, and ant bulldogs The life of a working ant can reach 5 years.

• Caste in an anthill - ants-soldiers in general can live longer than those caring for brood and uterus. And the queens themselves always live longer than any working ant. For example, the recorded record in the uterus of woodcutting ants was 28 years old, excluding the larval stage!
• The nature of the work performed.Ants who spend their whole life in an anthill live longer than foragers and soldiers, even though the latter are “programmed” for a longer life. The point here is that soldiers and foragers, for the most part, sooner or later become victims of predators and other ants, and die before reaching their physiological limit.
• The duration of the larva stage. For example, in ants living beyond the Arctic Circle, due to a very short warm period of the year, the larvae develop several years, and adult ants live for several more years.
• Temperature regime: the life of ants at relatively low temperatures is longer than that of the counterparts of their own species, but living in a warmer area.

In some species of ants that do not have a clear division into castes (for example, black garden or the same pharaoh ants), there is a certain “career” in the anthill. The newborn ant first cares for the larvae and eggs, then - arranging the anthill, and at the end of life - the search and prey.

This is very logical - in the anthill is always concentrated the largest number of viable individuals,and because of the high mortality rate among the foragers, the ranks of the latter are replenished only as necessary by “already outdated” individuals.

 

Long-lived ants and some records

The most long-lived are large tropical ants, whose life takes place in an anthill. Among them are the bull-ants ants, in which working individuals can live up to 5 years, and their uterus up to 20-22 years.

Asian and African nomadic ants live much less, but they are known for their other records. For example, the African black womb stray ant can reach a length of 5 cm, being the largest ant in general, and the queen of an Asian stray ant can lay up to 120 thousand eggs per day - about 2 eggs every second. Virtually no other living creatures on earth can boast of such fertility.

And the most short-lived are small parasitic ants, living off stocks in alien anthills. The life of working individuals of such ants takes only a few weeks.

 

How do ants live in an anthill

All ants live in large families with a more or less complex structure. The more primitive ants do not have a distinct division into castes, and each working individual may perform different functions.More evolutionarily advanced ants have several castes in each family, representatives of each of which carry out strictly defined operations.

It is interesting

For example, the leaf cutter ants in the family have 7 castes, differing from each other in size and appearance. In sum, all ants perform 29 different functions.

Families with which ants live can consist from several tens to several million individuals. For example, stray ants in one family number from 2 to 20 million ants.

You can watch a little bit about how stray ants live.

 

Fascinating video: hunting of nomadic (vagrant) ants

Almost all ants live in anthills, which they either build on their own, or transform various cavities in the ground, wood, under stones, or into human habitation. The life of ants in an anthill is distinguished by the highest organization and order.

Each member of a large family clearly knows their functions and performs them extremely diligently. Communication between insects occurs through chemical signals, and news spreads very quickly here.For example, within a few minutes after the death of the uterus, every ant will know about it.

The video clearly shows the life of ants in an anthill, arranged in a special glass formicaria:

 

Video on the life of ants in formicaria - the home of the anthill

It is interesting

Stray ants are a notable exception to the rule. They do not have a constant anthill, and they constantly wander in search of forage lands. At the same time, in the place of temporary dislocation, the working ants grapple with each other, seizing the body of the neighbor with their jaws, and form a huge anthill-ball, in which life continues to boil.

Ants live practically all over the world. They are not only in Greenland, Antarctica and on some oceanic islands. In the same place where the ants live, they managed to conquer almost all the biotopes, inhabiting the permafrost zone, forests, trees, steppes and even deserts, in which they feed on insects dying from the heat. But regardless of the biotope, the anthill of any ants is a complex structure in which eggs and larvae are kept in their optimal microclimate conditions.

 

A little bit about the life of the nest in general

Almost every anthill begins with a small mink or cavity under a stone, in which the fertilized female hides. Without feeding and not showing up on the surface, she lays the first eggs and feeds her first assistants with special trophic eggs.

And only after the first offspring is transformed from larvae into adult ants, the female will begin to receive food from them. They will begin to care for the eggs and expand the anthill.

For many ants, all the garbage from the anthill is formed near the exit, and large heaps are formed from it. Such anthills are known in our forests - they can reach a height of 2 m.

The way of life of ants living in northern latitudes implies a long experience of the winter period. In those areas where positive temperatures remain underground, the ants do not hibernate, but prepare stocks for the winter, and the anthill continues to live normally throughout the winter. In this case, the female ceases to lay eggs, and all exits from the anthill are immured.

It is interesting

Reaper ants can collect up to 1 kg of grains and seeds in an anthill, which are used by the colony for food during the cold season.

In the same place where the earth freezes, ants can spend the winter in a state of supercooling. Here they set records: the larvae of Kamchatka ants can be cooled to minus 50 ° C. Of course, during this period the insects do not move, and their internal organs practically do not work.

Usually once a year in the anthill the sexual individuals hatch, which simultaneously fly out, swarm, mate, and the females then crawl away in search of new places for the anthills. Sometimes a very large family can split up, and part of it goes to a new place to organize a new colony.

In general, ants are an example of altruism and complete self-sacrifice for the good of the colony. Each of them is ready to perish, protecting an anthill from the enemy, and each of them works selflessly all his short or long life. It is not surprising that ants today are the most numerous insects on Earth, surpassing any other group of arthropods in the number of individuals.

 

Interesting video: how ants attack and eat other insects