CATDOLL : CATDOLL: ants, bacteria and fungi

1. Ants and bacteria and fungi

Ants that feed on fungi have a secret weapon against foreign invaders: antibiotic-producing bacteria that live in their bodies. This protects their homes and food from parasites that destroy them. An international study led by UW-Madison bacterial biologist Cameron Currie, published in the journal Science, sheds light on this ancient and complex symbiotic relationship. The researchers found that the ants select specific, highly adapted burrows for the bacteria and secrete glands to provide nutrients, suggesting that ants, bacteria, fungi and parasites began to evolve together tens of millions of years ago.

"Each ant species has a different, highly modified structure to support different bacterial species," Currie said. "This suggests that ants are rapidly adapting to support bacteria. It also suggests that coevolution between ants and bacteria, as with fungi and parasites, apparently began very early, tens of millions of years ago."

More importantly, the long-term coexistence of species means there may be a mechanism that reduces the rate of resistance and tolerance. This could have a huge impact on modern medical treatments. We can learn a lot about ourselves from this system.

Currie studies the complex relationship between certain species of ants in Central and South America, where they feed on fungi, parasites destroy the fungi, and the ants use bacteria to fight the parasites. This phenomenon is a classic example of mutualism, and Currie sees it as a potential model system for studying the interactions of other organisms.

Although ants and their fungus gardens have been extensively studied for decades, Currie was the first scientist to demonstrate the importance of bacteria and the antibiotics they produce. He discovered that ants also have a symbiotic relationship with bacteria.

2. Is it okay to raise ants in sterilized soil?

No, some bacteria will kill ants, because ants are saprophytes. A sterilizing environment will generally cause insufficient nutrient supply.

Yes, sterilized soil is better.

3. There are ants in the flower pot. Can Multi-Bacteria-Lin remove the ants?

Carbendazim is a highly effective, low-toxic systemic fungicide with systemic therapeutic and protective effects. However, it is not very effective against ants.

Put some mothballs and the ants will stay away!

Don’t panic when you encounter ants disturbing your flowers. Here are some tips to help you get rid of the trouble quickly.

4. What are the uses of ants? What role do they play in the world?

Ants are insects with social living habits, belonging to the order Hymenoptera. Ants have distinct knee-shaped antennae, and one or two nodular segments on their abdomens. They generally have no wings, except for mating male ants and fertile female ants, whose wings fall off after mating. Ants are completely metamorphosed insects, and they must go through the egg, larva, and pupa stages before becoming adults. Larvae and queen ants cannot live independently and are completely fed by worker ants. Worker ants are all female, but they cannot reproduce. They are responsible for taking care of the queen ants and larvae, and then gradually begin to do more complex tasks such as digging holes and collecting food. Worker ants have different body shapes. Some have larger heads and jaws, and are responsible for fighting and defending the ant nest. They are also called soldier ants.

Ants are a common type of insects and are easy to identify. They are generally small (0.5cm-2.5cm) and come in black, yellow, red, white, etc. Their body walls are elastic and smooth or have fine hairs. They have chewing mouthparts with well-developed mandibles. Their antennae are knee-shaped, with long pedicels and 2-3 enlarged segments at the end. The antennae have 4-13 segments. Their abdomens are nodular. Some have wings, while others do not. The spurs on their front legs are large and comb-shaped, and are horn-cleansing organs (for cleaning antennae). They are polymorphic social insects. They can carry objects that are hundreds of times heavier than themselves.

Ants are typical social groups. They have three major elements of sociality: individuals of the same species can cooperate with each other to take care of their young; there is a clear division of labor; at least two generations overlap in the ant colony, and the offspring can take care of the previous generation for a period of time. [1]

Ants are definitely building experts. There are many compartments in the ant nest, each of which has its own use. The queen ant's compartment is the largest. There is a kind of ant in the desert that builds a nest that looks like a castle from a distance, 4.5 meters high. When those nests are abandoned, some animals will use them as their own nests. The bottom of the ant nest is for the queen ant to live in. The queen ant's task is to eat, mate, and give birth to babies. The ant nest is solid, safe, and comfortable, with roads leading to all directions. There is also a circle of soil outside the ant nest, and some places to store food. The inside is ventilated and cool, warm in winter and cool in summer, so the food does not spoil easily. [2]

Ants are also famous architects in the animal world. They use their mandibles to dig holes in the ground and build their nests by moving sand and soil one grain at a time. The "chambers" of an ant nest will remain in the shape they were built in until the soil dries out severely. Ant researcher Walter Chilgale has modeled ant nests. He pours liquid metal, paraffin, or orthodontic plaster into the nest and digs it out after it solidifies. "You can get a structure that goes deep into the ground," he said. He observed that the areas closest to the surface have the most chambers, and the deeper you go, the fewer chambers there are, and the smaller they are. "To do this, the ants have to know how deep they are relative to the ground," he said. But how they "build" remains a mystery. Chilgale speculates that the ants may measure depth by sensing the level of carbon dioxide in the soil. [3]

2 Ant colony division of labor

There are generally 4 levels: queen, female, male and worker. Some species live in the nests of other species, and their larvae are raised by the host's worker ants.

1. Queen Ant: A female ant with reproductive capacity, also known as the queen ant, or the ant king. She is the largest in the colony, especially with a large abdomen, well-developed reproductive organs, short antennae, small thoracic legs, with wings, wingless or wingless. Her main responsibilities are to lay eggs, reproduce offspring and manage the colony.

2. Female ants: Female ants that have reproductive capacity after mating. After mating, they shed their wings and become the new queen ants, commonly known as "princess" or "angel".

3. Male ants: also called father ants. They have small round heads, underdeveloped upper jaws, and long, thin antennae. They have well-developed reproductive organs.

Ant

Organs and external genitalia, whose main function is to mate with the queen ant, commonly known as "prince" or "mosquito".

4. Worker ants: Also known as professional ants. They are wingless, undeveloped females, and are generally the smallest individuals in the colony, but they are the largest in number. They have small compound eyes, and very tiny or no simple eyes. Their upper jaws, antennae, and three pairs of legs are well developed, and they are good at walking and running. Worker ants have no reproductive ability. The main duties of worker ants are to build and expand nests, collect food, feed larvae and queen ants, etc. In order to hibernate, ants have to eat a lot of food in the fall to store fat in their bodies, and they do not eat throughout the following winter. Because of this, the worker ants in the ant colony are looking for food almost every day to ensure that every member of the ant colony can eat enough food to resist the cold in winter.

5. Soldier Ants: "Soldier Ants" is the common name for large worker ants of certain ant species. They are female ants without reproductive capacity. They have large heads and well-developed upper jaws that can crush hard food, and become weapons in battle when defending the colony.

3 Main types

Subgenus Myrmecophaga

Soldier Ant

The subgenus Ponerine was first described by Jerdon in 1851. The species he described was Harpegnathos Saltalor. He noted that this ant is three-quarters of an inch long and will jump away when frightened or disturbed. They have strong mandibles and a powerful tail sting. They nest underground, especially at the roots of plants, and prey on small insects. Ponerine ants are a species of Formicidae. They are found in subtropical and tropical humid areas around the world. They are not common in large cities. They are all carnivorous or predatory ants, but some species will hunt in groups. Very few are polymorphic. There is only one node, and there is almost no prestalk. The base of the abdomen is obviously constricted between the two segments, and the tail sting is exposed. A total of 42 genera and about 2,000 species have been recorded worldwide

Small yellow house ant

The small yellow house ant is small in size, with worker ants only about 1.5-2 mm long and with stings. They are found all over China, often nesting under piles of debris in kitchens and closed balconies and in cracks in walls, causing widespread harm.

Yellow S ant

Big-headed ant

Big-headed ants are one of the most important harmful ant species in Beijing, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang. They usually build nests in the corners of outdoor foundations and invade buildings to steal food. There are soldier ants.

Rosenbergii

Rocky's road ant is widely distributed in China. It often builds nests on roadsides, in corners, and in cracks in walls, and invades indoors to steal food.

Stink Ant

Stink ants are distributed in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and southern China. They build nests on tree trunks or roots outdoors and sometimes invade indoors to cause harm.

Leafcutter ants

Leafcutter ants cut leaves from trees and other plants and use them to grow fungi. They feed the growing fungi to their larvae (the adults mainly feed on the juices of the leaves they cut up). There are actually only 38 species in two genera of ants (Atta and Acromyrmex) that can cut leaves.

Bulldog Ant

Also known as the "Australian giant ant" and "bulldog ant", they are relatively large among ant species, with a maximum size of 5 cm. They have a stinger on their body that can kill their enemies. The Queensland species of bulldog ants can grow up to three centimeters.

Fire ant

The red fire ant is a species of fire ant. It is an agricultural and medical pest originating from South America. It was introduced to the United States in the 1930s, and spread from the United States to Australia and Taiwan in 2001 and 2002 through containers and turf. It was then introduced from Taiwan to Wuchuan County, Guangdong Province, China through household garbage, and then spread to other cities in the province, Hong Kong and Macau.

Broad-jointed ant

The scientific name of the broad-jointed arrow ant is "Cataglyphis nodus". They are a kind of ant that lives in the Sahara Desert in Africa and are currently one of the most heat-resistant species in the animal world.

Bigtooth Ant

The big-toothed ant (Odontomachus bauri), also known as the trap-jaw ant, is one of the predators with the fastest upper and lower jaw closing speed in nature. A study on the big-toothed ant showed that its upper and lower jaw closing speed can reach as fast as 126-230 kilometers per hour.

Army Ants

Army ants live in the Amazon River basin and like to live in groups. Generally, a group has one to two million members. They are migratory ants, have no fixed residence, and are accustomed to discovering prey while on the move.

Bigtooth Ant

A common name for several different genera of ants that collect seeds and leaves. Species of the genus Messor collect seeds, peel them, and store them. Leafcutter ants of the genus Atta collect leaves to cultivate fungi for consumption. Some species of the genus Pheidole have powerful mandibles, which they may use to crush harvested seeds. Pogonomyrmex stings are very painful.

Weaver Ants

Weaver ants, whose name comes from their unique living habits: a group of ants work together to spin silk to bundle fresh leaves to form a nest. They can live up to 8-10 weeks.

Argentine Ant

The Argentine ant originally lived in Argentina, but has now spread to other parts of the world except Africa, seriously affecting the local ecological environment. The Argentine ant originally lived only in South America. Although this black ant is only 3mm long, it is extremely aggressive.

Nomadic ants

The details of nomadic ants are unknown, but they may leave the nest in groups of up to tens of thousands.

Mexican honey ant

In the North American desert, Mexican honey ants must learn to use their bodies as food storage. Their bodies are filled with a large amount of fluid to store food. When needed, they can regain nutrients in their bodies through rumination. There is also a species of Mexican honey ants that specializes in sucking the sap of sweet oak trees and other trees for a living. In addition to meeting their daily normal needs, the shrewd honey ants make the excess sweet juice into honey and carefully store it in "live honey barrels". These "live honey barrels" are some ants that enjoy special treatment. In addition to storing honey, they no longer participate in any other labor. When the ant colony is out of food, the "live honey barrels" will "open the warehouse and release food" to help their compatriots.

Army Ants

This is a superorganism in motion. A large number of "Eciton burchellii" army ants are forming an attack formation.

Bullet Ant

This is the most poisonous ant, found in the Amazon rainforest, with a body length of 2.5-4cm. The pain of being stung by it is like being hit by a bullet, and it will last for 24 hours (it may weaken after a few hours).

Ant larvae

This ant species is a member of the genus ponerine, which has not yet been formally classified into taxonomy. Ponerine ants are mainly distributed in the subtropical and tropical humid areas of the earth. They are rarely seen in big cities. Ponerine ants are carnivorous or predatory ants, and have the most primitive lifestyle and morphological structure in the family Formicidae. Ant nests are generally not large, with only a few hundred individuals at most. Generally, they do not search for food in groups, but search for food alone, but some species will also hunt in groups. Ponerine ants have two rows of teeth on their upper jaws, 12 antennae, and a small leaf at the base of the antennae at the front of the head, which is also a characteristic of this type of ant.

Ants also establish colonies by getting to know each other through nuptial flights. They fall in love at first sight and mate during or after flight. The "groom" does not live long.

Soldier Ant

Ants die soon after mating, leaving behind the "widow" queen ant to live a lonely life. The queen ant sheds her wings and chooses suitable soil and place to build a nest underground. She is "alone" and has limited strength, so she can only temporarily build a small room as a place to live and a delivery room for her "pregnant" body. After the eggs in her body mature and are produced, the small larvae hatch and the queen ant becomes busy. She feeds each young ant mouth to mouth until these young ants grow up and develop into adults and can live independently. When the first batch of worker ants grow up, they dig holes leading to the outside world to find food, and then expand the building area of ​​the nest to provide housing for more and more family members. From then on, the queen ant, who has suffered so much hardship, enjoys a comfortable life and becomes the commander of this large family. The work of raising young ants and feeding the queen ant is undertaken by the worker ants. But the queen ant still has to continue to lay eggs to reproduce the large family. Ant nests come in various forms. Most species build nests in the underground soil, digging tunnels, small rooms and residences, and piling up the excavated materials and leaves near the entrance to form a small hill for protection. Some ants also use plant leaves, stems, petioles, etc. to build paper-like nests and hang them on trees or between rocks. Other ants live in rotten wood in forest areas. What is more special is that some ants build their nests in or next to the nests of other species of ants; and the two "families" do not have disputes and can live in harmony. This kind of ant nest is called a mixed ant nest, which is actually a coexistence of different species. Regardless of different ants or the same species of ants, the number of ants in a nest can vary greatly. The smallest group has only dozens or nearly a hundred ants, and some have thousands of ants, while large groups can have tens of thousands or even more ants.

Ant

In the broad-leaved forests of southern China, there is a kind of ant with a tail that often tilts up. It likes to use the rotten matter it picks up and the old bark it gnaws off from the tree, mixed with the sticky juice secreted from its mouth, to build an ant nest as big as a football on the tree. The nest is divided into many layers, each of which is inhabited by male ants, queen ants and worker ants. The ant with a tail gives birth to children in the nest and becomes an "independent kingdom". At the beginning, there is one nest on each tree. When the group is too large and a new queen ant is born, the new queen ant will lead some worker ants to build a new home. Sometimes, they often fight fiercely to compete for territory. They catch small insects on the branches and leaves of the tree canopy for food. In order to shorten the distance they walk on the tree, they also build an "ant rope bridge" between trees. In order to connect the passage between two trees for a longer period of time, the worker ants who are responsible for building the bridge constantly update the "ant rope bridge". After the food on the tree is caught, they catch small insects on the ground. Once the prey is captured, the ants will inject anesthetic liquid into the prey with their stingers, making it unconscious, and then drag it back to the nest in groups. Even a mantis or earthworm that is a hundred times heavier than them can be easily dragged back to the nest.

The feeding habits of ants vary greatly among different species. They can generally be divided into carnivorous, herbivorous, and omnivorous ants. Before the severe cold arrives, ants carry aphids, scale insects, cicadas, and butterfly larvae to their nests, preparing to suck the excrement from these insects as food (milk and honey) in winter; they also carry weed seeds before the severe cold arrives, preparing to sow them in the spring of next year.

The number of organisms formed by the interaction with ants is astonishing. There are more than 465 species of plants from 52 families, thousands of species of animals, and a large number of unknown fungi and microorganisms that live in symbiosis with ants, either exclusively or interspersed.

Microscopic photo of an ant

Ants are using extraordinary strategies for survival—growing fungi, harvesting seeds, herding nectar-producing insects, weaving nests, cooperative hunting, social parasitism, slavery—that excite the curiosity of scientists and the public. The secret to ants' survival in every corner of the world is that they live in highly organized colonies. They work together and build nests in which their eggs and offspring can grow safely.

Ants have different divisions of labor. The queen ant is responsible for laying eggs; the worker ants are responsible for building and defending the nest, taking care of the queen ant, eggs and larvae, and searching for food; the male ants are responsible for mating with the queen ant. Most of the eggs will develop into females, which are called worker ants; a small number of them will develop into queen ants and male ants. After the new queen ants and male ants mature, they will mate. After mating, the male ants will die. The new queen ant will begin to lead another new group and start a new life.

In a colony, the queen ant is the only one that can lay eggs and reproduce. She is the mother of all ants in the colony. Worker ants feed her, clean her body, and take her eggs to another place to take care of them.

Some ant species in Australia use their workers as a kind of living storage tank. When the worker ants have collected a large amount of nectar, stored it in their bodies, and swelled up, they hang themselves from the ceiling of the nest until other ants come to eat the nectar inside their storage tanks.

Soldier ants forage on the forest floor, sometimes forming long lines on the forest floor in search of food. They are always hungry and will attack anything, even large mammals.

Harvester ants eat seeds, which they store in cellars, while leafcutter ants eat mushrooms and carry leaves underground to grow mushrooms. Another group of ants stores insects called aphids. They extract a sugary substance from the aphids as food, much like humans milk cows.

According to scientists' research, ants lack sugar in their caves. Once they find something sweet, their antennae will harden autonomously. This is the nature of ants.

Ants are highly social insects that communicate with each other through pheromones emitted from their bodies. When ants find food, they spread pheromones on the food. The receptors on the antennae of other ants can recognize the signal, and they will instinctively drag the things with pheromones back to their holes.

When an ant dies, the pheromones on its body still exist. When other ants pass by, they will be attracted by the pheromones. However, dead ants cannot communicate with other ants like living ants (touching each other's antennae), so its corpse with pheromones will be carried back by its companions as food.

Normally, such corpses would not be eaten as food because, in addition to pheromones, each nest of ants has its own specific identification smell, and things with the same smell will not be attacked. This is the basis for ants in the same nest to cooperate well.

The internal structure of an ant

When ants are marching, they secrete a pheromone that guides the ants behind them to take the same route. If we run our hands across the marching ants and disrupt their pheromones, the ants will lose their sense of direction and crawl around randomly. So we should not interfere with them casually.

Ants are a typical social group, with the three major elements of a social group: individuals can cooperate with each other to take care of their young; they have a clear division of labor system; and offspring can take care of the previous generation for a period of time.

It should also be pointed out that "termites" are not ants. Apart from having the same social living habits as ants, termites have great differences in physiological structure from ants.

Biological behavior refers to the activities of organisms that are externally perceptible and have adaptive significance. Behavior is the discipline that studies these activities. Morphology and behavior were first noticed by people, but it was not until the 19th century that people obtained theoretical weapons and experimental means for studying biological behavior. The theory of evolution raised animal behavior to the level of adaptability.

The classification of biological behaviors is very confusing. From the perspective of genetics and development, it is generally divided into innate behaviors and acquired behaviors, that is, instinctive behaviors and learned behaviors. However, this classification method is not commonly used. People generally divide it according to the function of the behavior. Unfortunately, this classification method is not strict and there are a lot of overlapping areas.

4 Appearance features

Ant

There are 21 subfamilies and 283 genera of ants (the mainstream classification system uses 16 subfamilies. Compared with the 21 subfamilies system, the new system has separated several subfamilies from the ponerine ants). They are generally small in size, with colors such as black, brown, yellow, and red. Their body walls are elastic, smooth, or have fine hairs. Their mouthparts are chewing type, with well-developed mandibles. Their antennae are knee-shaped, with very long pedicels, 2 to 3 enlarged segments at the end, and the entire antennae have 4 to 13 segments. Their abdomen is knot-shaped. They may or may not have wings. The distance between their front legs is large, and they are comb-shaped, which are horn cleaners (for cleaning antennae).

The external appearance of ants is divided into three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen, and they have six legs. Ant eggs are about 0.5 mm long, irregularly oval, milky white, and the larvae are worm-like and translucent. Worker ants are small, about 2.8 mm long, and brown-yellow all over. Individual ants can only be easily spotted by close observation. Both male and female ants are relatively large. The abdomen is fat, the head and thorax are brown-yellow, the front half of the abdomen is brown-yellow, and the back half is brown-brown. The male ant is about 5.5 mm long. The female ant is about 6.2 mm long. Common ants in indoor environments include small yellow house ants, etc.

5 Distribution range

Ants (10 photos)

Ants are the most common insects on earth and the most numerous type of insects. Since all kinds of ants live in social groups, they were generally called "ants" in ancient times. According to modern morphological science classification, ants belong to bees. Ants can live in any place where they have living conditions and are the most capable creatures in the world to resist natural disasters. They are polymorphic social insects. It is estimated that there are about 11,700 known ants in the world. A larger range of ant flora research is yet to be conducted. There are more than 600 species of ants that have been identified in China. Ants belong to the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae. Big-headed ants, Rocky road ants.

6 Lifestyle

housing

Ant

Ants usually build their nests underground, and the underground nests are very large. They have good drainage and ventilation measures. Generally, worker ants are responsible for building the nests. The entrance and exit are mostly a small arched mound with a hole in the middle like a volcano. Secondly, there are holes for ventilation, and each room in the nest is clearly classified. Warm and moist soil is their favorite. They usually live in dry areas, but it is little known that they can barely survive in water for two weeks.

life

Ants have a long lifespan, with worker ants living from a few weeks to 3-10 years, and queen ants living for more than a dozen years or even more than 100 years. An ant nest can grow in one place for 1 to 10 years.

feeding habits

The diet of ants can be simply divided into the following categories:

Meat eater, omnivore with a meat-oriented diet, omnivore with a vegetarian diet, and vegetarian diet.

Meat: It is best to use insects as the main food. The proportion of pure carnivorous ants is relatively small, but each type of carnivorous ants has different preferences for food, so not all insects can be used as food for all carnivorous ants. Therefore, when raising them, you need to prepare the insects that the ants like to eat, otherwise it will often cause the ants to mistakenly think that they have enough food, but they will not eat or starve to death. Therefore, if you cannot prepare the food that the ants like, it will be very frustrating to raise them.

Omnivorous and carnivorous: Omnivorous and carnivorous ants are more common. They can eat both vegetarian and nonvegetarian food. However, nonvegetarian food is more likely to attract them. They are not picky about insects and generally accept all kinds of food. When feeding, in addition to insects, you can also feed them with animal protein. Examples of foods that can be used are as follows: mainly carnivorous and dead insects, plus fruits and honeydew. When feeding, you can feed insects, fish (can be eaten raw), cooked pork, cooked chicken, etc.

Omnivorous and partially vegetarian: There are many overlaps between omnivorous and partially carnivorous ant species. The only difference is that when insect carcasses and sweets appear at the same time, omnivorous and partially vegetarian ants are more likely to be attracted to the sweets.

Vegetarianism: Pure vegetarian ants are not common among all ant species. Some ants only eat certain special plants or fruit juices. Leaf-cutter ants in foreign countries even bring leaves back to their nests to grow fungi and use fungi as their only food. So raising these ants is just like raising pure carnivorous ants. You must make sure that you can prepare food first, otherwise it will be very frustrating.

Food intake

The key is "not to overfeed", especially for those ants that carry as much food as they can and then slowly enjoy it in the nest. If they are fed too much, the food will easily expire and become moldy and rotten in the nest, which will easily attract small insects that mainly eat carrion to live in the nest. When they reproduce in the nest, it will be unsightly. If there are too many small insects, it may also endanger the safety of the ant larvae. In addition, if the food source is a living insect, parasites or mites that have previously laid eggs on the food may grow. The mites will then multiply like a plague in the nest and attach to every ant and larva. The parasitized ants may be covered with multiple mites at the same time and usually will not live long. This also creates a fatal crisis for the entire colony.

strength

According to mechanics, an ant can lift objects that are 400 times heavier than its own weight, and can also drag objects that are 1,700 times heavier than its own weight. Mark Moffett, an entomologist at Harvard University in the United States, is a scholar who has studied Asian ants. According to his observation, more than 10 ants working together can carry maggots or other food that are 5,000 times heavier than their own weight. This is equivalent to 10 strong men with an average weight of 70 kilograms carrying 3,500 tons of weight, or an average of 350 tons per person. From the perspective of relative strength, ants are well-deserved strongmen. Why can tiny ants have such magical powers? Scientists have conducted a lot of research and analysis, proving that the body of an ant is a treasure trove of micro-animal nutrition. Every 100 grams of ants can produce 2,929 kilojoules (700 kilocalories) of heat. Scientists have found that the leg muscles of ants are a highly efficient "engine", and this "muscle engine" is composed of billions of delicate "small engines". Therefore, ants can produce such extraordinary power. The "muscle engine" of ants uses a special "fuel", a very complex phosphorus compound called adenosine triphosphate, or ATP. In many cases, as long as the muscles produce a little acid during activity (this feeling is what we usually call "sore arms"), this "fuel" can cause a drastic change, which can cause the long molecules of muscle protein to shrink in an instant and generate tremendous power. This special "fuel" can directly release the potential energy without burning and convert it into mechanical energy. In addition, there is no mechanical friction, so there is almost no energy loss. Because of this, the efficiency of the ant's "muscle engine" is very high, up to more than 80%. This is the secret of the "ant strongman".

Why do ants have strength many times greater than their own? Ants are small animals in the animal kingdom, but they have great strength. If you weigh the weight of an ant and the weight of the object it carries, you will be very surprised. The weight it lifts is almost 100 times greater than its own weight. No one in the world has ever been able to lift a weight more than 3 times his own weight. In this sense, the strength of an ant is much greater than that of a human. Where does this strongman's strength come from? It seems to be an interesting "mystery". After a lot of experimental research, scientists finally revealed this "mystery". It turns out that the muscles in the claws of ants are a very efficient "prime mover", which is several times more efficient than aircraft engines, so it can generate considerable power. We know that any engine needs a certain amount of fuel, such as gasoline, diesel, kerosene or other heavy oil. However, the fuel supplied to the "muscle engine" is a special fuel. This "fuel" does not burn, but it can also release the potential energy and convert it into mechanical energy. Without combustion, there is no heat loss, and the efficiency is naturally greatly improved. Chemists have already known the composition of this special "fuel", which is a very complex phosphorus compound. This means that there are billions of delicate small motors hidden in the claws of ants as power. This discovery has aroused a strong desire among scientists to create similar "artificial muscle engines". From the perspective of development prospects, if the powerful and dexterous automatic equipment like the claws of ants is used in technology, it will cause a fundamental change in technology. At that time, the appearance of elevators, cranes and other machines will be completely new. The cranes we use generally work with electric motors, but the efficiency of work is far worse than that of ants. Why? Because thermal power generation relies on burning coal to turn water into steam, and the steam drives the impeller to drive the generator to generate electricity. In the middle, it goes through several processes of converting chemical energy into heat energy, heat energy into mechanical energy, and mechanical energy into electrical energy. In these processes, part of the heat energy generated by combustion runs away in vain, and part of it is consumed because it has to overcome the friction generated by mechanical rotation, so the efficiency of this engine is very low, only 30-40%. The ant "engine" uses the special "fuel" in the muscle to directly convert it into electrical energy, with little loss, so it is very efficient. Inspired by the ant "engine", people have created a fuel cell that directly converts chemical energy into electrical energy. This battery uses fuel to undergo redox reactions to directly generate electricity. It does not have a combustion process, so it is very efficient, reaching 70-90%.

Languages

Ants are small and powerful, and their perfect physiological structure enables them to withstand all kinds of tests. In order to set out and return to the nest in a constantly changing environment, desert arrow ants know how to use polarized light emitted by the sun to return to the nest. Amazon ants set their course by remembering visual references, and this memory is for a lifetime. After storing many memories, they call up relevant information based on where they go. Ants have a set of glands in their bodies, and they use different chemicals to convey more than 20 meanings.

The scrapers on the abdomen are different from those on humans and are a supplement to chemical language. The scrapers are sound-generating organs that can send vibration signals through friction. When a pair of ants line up neatly and show off their power on the street, a vibration signal comes from the stone. It turns out that an ant is trapped under the stone. In an instant, the ants push together and the ant is rescued. This signal can also be used to ask for food from the other party.

Know the way

Ants are colony insects that live in groups. They each have their own home. Most ants' homes are below the ground, where they can't easily find abundant food. When the weather is sunny and warm, we often see teams of ants crawling busily on the ground. If you observe carefully, or if you sprinkle some bread crumbs in front of them, you will see that when they arrive at the food, they start to carry the delicious food you prepared for them. If one ant can't carry it, two, three, or more ants will come up and carry it together. When they get the food, they will crawl back to their homes in an orderly manner along the way they came, dragging the food back to store for a delicious meal later. This is the effect of pheromones.

There are several kinds of ants, and different ones have different characteristics and functions. They have medicinal properties and can predict situations and events that many people cannot predict. Although ants are not very big, their lethality is definitely not inferior to other animals and things that are many times larger than them. Ants can make their homes in many places, such as [trees, wood, cement blocks, stone holes and cracks, etc.]. I personally think that the ant groups and families in this world are the world's largest buyers. Many of their things and commodities are free and can be exchanged, that is, they trade with each other. They want what everyone else doesn't want, and ants ventilate and fertilize the soil, etc. But there are also many side effects. I have personally seen ants go to the market and start large-scale wars [between ants]. There are many more, but that's all. In this world, every animal has side effects, and every plant and still life has side effects.

Biodiversity means that every species has a meaning. Some ants are harmful to humans, such as termites, while some are beneficial, such as black ants. Ants can also be used as food for other animals in nature, and can also help decompose animal carcasses, etc. My own understanding

Just like what you do to the world