CATDOLL : CATDOLL: How to raise ants

Ant

Edit this paragraph [Basic characteristics of ants]

Ants belong to the phylum Arthropoda, class Insecta, order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae.

[Pinyin] mǎ yǐ

[English name] ant

[Dictionary explanation] Ants are a type of insect. They usually build nests underground and live in groups. There are many types.

There are currently 21 subfamilies and 283 genera of ants (after Bolton 2003) (the mainstream classification system of 16 subfamilies is used. Compared with the system of 21 subfamilies, the new system has separated several subfamilies from the Myrmecophaga subfamily). Ants are a common type of insects and are easy to identify. They are generally small (0.5mm-3cm) and have colors of black, brown, yellow, red, etc. The body wall is elastic, smooth or hairy. The mouthparts are chewing type, and the upper jaw is well developed. The antennae are knee-shaped, with 4 to 13 segments, the pedicel is very long, and the last 2 to 3 segments are swollen. The first or 1st and 2nd segments of the abdomen are knot-shaped. With wings or without wings. The distance between the front legs is large, comb-shaped, and is a horn cleaning device (for cleaning antennae). It is a polymorphic social insect. It is estimated that only about half of ants - currently about 11,700 species - have been described. A larger-scale study of ant fauna is also yet to be conducted.

Common indoor ants include house ants and Pharaoh ants Monomorium pharaonis L.

Ants are the most common insects on earth and the most numerous insect species. Since all kinds of ants live in social groups, they were generally called "ants" in ancient times. According to modern morphological classification, ants can be divided into two major groups: ants and termites.

There are many kinds of ants, with more than 9,000 known species in the world and more than 600 species confirmed in my country. Ants have a long lifespan, with worker ants living from a few weeks to 3-7 years, and queen ants living for more than a dozen years or even decades. An ant nest can grow in one place for years, or even more than 50 years.

The external appearance of ants is divided into three parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. They have six legs. Ant eggs are about 0.5 mm long, irregularly oval, and milky white. Worker ants are small, about 2.8 mm long, and brown-yellow all over. Individual ants can only be easily spotted if you look closely. 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. Male ants are about 5.5 mm long. Female ants are about 6.2 mm long.

Ants are typical social insects, possessing the three major elements of social insects: individuals of the same species can cooperate with each other to take care of their young; they have a clear system of division of labor; 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 a social system, termites are very different from ants in terms of physiological structure.

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.

At present, the classification of biological behavior is very confusing. From the perspective of genetics and development, it is generally divided into innate behavior and acquired behavior, that is, instinctive behavior and learned behavior. 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.

Edit this section [Ant types and division of labor]

Ants undergo complete metamorphosis. All Formicidae live in social groups. There are usually four different ant types in a group.

l. Queen Ant: A female ant with reproductive capacity, or queen ant, who 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. Male ants: also called father ants. They have small round heads, underdeveloped upper jaws, and long and thin antennae. They have well-developed reproductive organs and external genitalia, and their main function is to mate with the queen ant.

3. Worker ants: Also known as professional ants. They are wingless and are generally the smallest individuals in the colony, but they are the most numerous. They have small compound eyes and very small or no simple eyes. They have well-developed mandibles, antennae and three pairs of thoracic legs and are good at walking and running. Worker ants are females without reproductive ability. The main duties of worker ants are to build and expand the nest, collect food, and feed young ants and queen ants.

4. Soldier ants: Soldier ants are females without reproductive capacity. They have large heads and well-developed mandibles that can crush hard food, which become weapons when defending the colony.

When ants establish a colony, it also starts with the two sexes getting to know each other through mating flights. They fall in love at first sight after meeting each other, and mate during or after the flight. The "bridegroom" does not live long, and dies soon after mating, leaving the "widow" queen ant to live a lonely life alone. The queen ant takes off her wings and chooses suitable soil and places 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 stay and a delivery room for her "pregnant" body. After the eggs in her body mature and are produced, the small larvae hatch and are born, and the queen ant becomes busy. She feeds each young ant mouth to mouth until these young ants grow up to become 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 hardships, enjoys a good life and becomes the commander of this large family. The work of raising young ants and feeding the queen ant is undertaken by worker ants. But the queen ant must continue to mate and produce fertilized eggs to reproduce the large family. Her life span can be as long as 15 years. Ant nests come in various forms. Most species build nests in the underground soil, digging tunnels, small chambers and residences, and piling the excavated materials and leaves near the entrance to form a small hillock 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. Whether it is 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.

In the broad-leaved forests in southern my country, there is another kind of ant called the "tail-curling ant". As the name suggests, the tail end with its stinger is often raised, as if it is eager to try and ready to attack at any time. It has a strange temper and often deals with trees. It likes to use the rotten things it picks up and the old bark it gnaws off from the tree, mixed with the sticky juice it spits out from its mouth, to build a football-sized nest on the tree. The nest is divided into many levels, where male ants, queen ants and worker ants live respectively. They give birth to children in the nest and become 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 of the worker ants to build a new home. Sometimes, a fierce fight often breaks out to compete for territory. In order to catch other small insects on the tree for food, it can run on the branches and leaves of the tree crown with its slender and powerful feet. If two trees are close to each other, in order to avoid the trouble of running long distances, they can cleverly bite each other's hind legs, hang down, and drift with the wind to another tree to build an ant rope bridge. In order to connect the passage between the two trees for a long time, the worker ants responsible for building the bridge can be constantly replaced. After catching all the food on the tree, they will form a team and run down the tree for a long distance to catch small animals on the ground. Once the prey is captured, the wing-tailed ants will inject anesthetic liquid with their stingers to put the prey into a coma, and then pull and drag it. Even a mantis or earthworm that is a hundred times heavier than them can be easily dragged back to the nest by them.

People should be very careful when passing under a tree with such ant nests. If you disturb them, they will come out in droves, descend from the tree or drop from the air, and attack you, causing you to suffer from stings. Everyone should be careful of ants!!

The feeding habits of ants vary greatly between different subfamilies and species. Generally, they can be divided into carnivorous, herbivorous and omnivorous. Ants work hard most of the year. So where do they go to find food in the cold winter? How do they spend the winter? It turns out that smart ants have made preparations before winter. They first carry weed seeds to prepare for sowing next year; at the same time, they carry aphids, scale insects, cicadas and butterfly larvae to their nests to spend the winter, and absorb the excrement from these insects as food (milk and honey). Why do ants know that winter is coming? From the perspective of modern science, this instinct of ants is controlled by the annual biological clock in their bodies. In other words, they make food reserves for the winter according to the operating rules of the annual biological clock.

The biological diversity of ant-ant interactions is staggering, with more than 465 plant species from 52 families (Jolivet 1996), thousands of animal species (Kistner 1982; Hölldobler & Wilson 1990), and a large number of unknown fungi and microorganisms (Schultz & McGlynn 2000; Mueller et al. 2001) in symbiosis with ants, either obligately or interspersed.

The extraordinary survival strategies ants are using—growing fungi, harvesting seeds, herding nectar-producing insects, weaving nests, cooperative hunting, social parasitism, slavery—are exciting the curiosity of scientists and the public alike.

The secret of ants' survival in every corner of the world is that they live in a very organized group. They work together and build nests in which their eggs and offspring can grow safely.

There are different types of ants, each with its own specialized duties. The queen ant lays eggs, most of which develop into females, called worker ants. They are responsible for building and defending the nest, caring for the queen, eggs and larvae, and searching for food. In due course, male ants and new queens emerge. They have wings and fly out of the nest in groups. After mating, the male ants die and the new queen begins to lead the life of another colony.

The queen ant is the most important member of the colony. She is the only one that can lay eggs. This means she is the mother of all the ants in the colony. The worker ants feed her, clean her, and take her eggs to another place to take care of them.

Certain Australian ants use their workers as a kind of living storage tank. After the workers have gathered large quantities of nectar, a sweet liquid from flowers, and have enlarged their bodies by swallowing it, they hang from the ceiling of their nest until another ant needs to eat their stored nectar.

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

Different ants eat different foods. Harvester ants eat seeds, which they store in cellars, while leafcutter ants eat mushrooms, carrying leaves underground to grow them. Some ants store insects called aphids, extracting a sugary substance from their bodies as food, much like humans milk cows.

According to scientists' research, ants lack sugar in their caves, which is not good for their growth and development. In order to find sufficient sugar, once ants find something sweet, their antennae will automatically harden up. 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, and other ants will instinctively drag the pheromone-stained objects 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.

Edit this paragraph Ants' persistence

Ants are small and powerful, and their perfect physiological mechanisms enable 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.

"Intruder spotted, all ants on alert. 422nd Division, go and fight!"

"Attention, sisters. Attention, sisters. There is a caterpillar ahead. Please move it quickly. Broadcast again. There is a caterpillar ahead..."

The scrapers on the abdomen are a supplement to the 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 pressed 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.

No queen ant