The mighty ant colony is a fascinating miniature, social society. At the core of this tiny civilization is a queen who overlooks her anthill kingdom populated by busy worker ants. But, did you know that not all worker ants are the same? In a recent study, evolutionary biologists have found that genetics plays a major role in the forming of different classes within ant colonies.
Photo by Matuus Gaal
An ant queen can live up to 30 years and has only one job – to lay eggs and lots of them! However, her royal working subjects can take on many different daily tasks that include foraging, brood care (aka babysitting), building, or defending the nest. Biologists believe that these specialized behaviors may be due to the ant’s physical features it was born with.
For example, some species of colonies have soldier ants, that can weigh up to 100 times more than their sisters who primarily take on the job of caring for baby ants called, antlings.
In an ant colony, there are typically three types of ants: the queen, the female workers, and the males. You can identify male ants by their wings in which their sister workers lack.
A queen is also born with wings in which she uses to leave the nest where she was born to mate and start a colony of her own. She eventually trades her freedom, by losing her wings and lives out the rest of her life laying eggs.
Queen ants are essentially mothers to most of the ants in her colony. She can give birth to males, females, and future queens – all possessing her genetic makeup and born to carry out specific purposes for the good of the amazing anthill.
Filed under: Just for Fun, learning resources, Parents and Kids, What's New Tagged: | Fun facts, Learning, Math Blaster
Leave a Reply