A short story from the encyclopedia about ants. The most interesting facts about ants for children. Where do ants live

Ant families

Ant families can contain from several tens to several million individuals. Moreover, the most numerous part of the family is working individuals, or rather, barren females with undeveloped wings. The queens live inside the nest. Males appear once a year and die after the mating season.

Families are monogynous when only one queen lives in it; and polygynous, when there are many queens.

Anthills

Anthills are above ground and underground. An underground nest of ants can be seen from the piles of soil surrounding the entrance to the anthill. In this type of anthill, a short underground gallery leads to an oval chamber. There can be up to several dozen such cameras. They, connecting, form a surface horizontal system. From one of the chambers there is usually a vertical stroke, which is called the trunk. It leads to horizontally arranged chambers.

Aboveground anthills are few, but more visible. They are divided into 4 types:

• moss bumps,
• earth bumps,
• mounds of earth and plant residues,
• mounds of plant remains.

Some anthills have summer dwellings. There they store eggs and brood.

Most species of ants have roads that they mark with special odorous substances - pheromones.

Roads are forage and exchange. Stern roads have different purposes. Some serve to move to aphid colonies, where ants collect the sweet secretions of these insects - honeydew, which serves as the main source of carbohydrate food for ants.

The relationship between ants and aphids, called trophobiosis, is mutually beneficial. Ants receive sweet food from aphids and, in turn, protect them from enemies, transfer them to new shoots, and sometimes even take them to an anthill for the winter. Most of the ants walking along this road to the anthill have a light belly swollen from honeydew.

Other roads, called stream roads, serve to reduce the density of ants near the nest. These roads are mostly used by hunter ants.

The third roads, called complex roads, are used by both honeydew collectors and hunter ants.

Exchange roads serve to connect anthills (families).

Each road is associated with one column, that is, a certain group of ants, which operates in its limited territory. Each column has builders, foragers, etc. The ants of each column live in their sector of the nest adjacent to their path.

Ant food

Ants need two components for nutrition: protein and carbohydrate. Various insects serve as protein food. Ants use honeydew and tree sap as carbohydrate food.

All the food that ants bring to the nest is distributed among all individuals. Protein food is consumed primarily by larvae, and by ants, which feed young larvae with secretions of special glands and feed eggs (feeding eggs are laid by females and young workers. These eggs are intended only for food). Carbohydrate food is eaten by all ants that have emerged from pupae.

Liquid food is distributed among insects by tropholaxis. The ant collects honeydew in the goiter, separated from the stomach by a valve. Due to this, food in the stomach is not digested. The ant becomes in a characteristic pose, a drop of liquid is released from its mouth. One or more ants come up to him and drink this drop. In turn, they feed other ants in the same way, and so on.

If too much liquid food enters the nest, then it is contained in the stomachs of special guardian ants.

In addition to distributing food among ants, tropholaxis plays another important role. A certain amount of excretion of the glands of queens, offspring and working individuals is mixed into food. Thanks to this, the ants learn the number of offspring in the family, the presence or absence of a female, etc.

If any forager finds a large amount of food, then he organizes group foraging. There are three ways to do this. The first way is self-mobilization. In this case, the ant attracts nearby ants with specific movements, pheromones. The second way is non-specific activation of ants. The ant, returning to the nest, excites other ants. However, he does not tell where exactly the food is located. The most effective way of group foraging is mobilization. This is understood as the actions of the ant, leading to the fact that other ants come exactly to the place where the food was found.

Small, industrious insects - red forest ants - built an anthill in the forest more often. This is their home". The ant heap is built of twigs and dry grass, this is the upper part of the house, and under it in the soil there are underground floors of the anthill with many passages. The anthill usually has a domed shape, which protects it from rain, water rolls down from the top and does not wash out the dwelling. The height of the anthill sometimes reaches up to 1 meter. The nest maintains constant humidity. Nesting material circulates all the time: ants lift up, needles and twigs. Therefore, in the nest, there is never mold.

Thousands of ants live in a large nest. Insects, there is a distribution of labor: some are responsible for the construction of housing and forage, others produce offspring, and so on. It is interesting to watch how ants scurry around the anthill all day long. Some are building material, others are prey for food (caterpillars, slugs)

How Ants Reproduce

On warm autumn days, especially after rain, flocks of ants - males and queens - fly in the air. Males live only a few days. Females lose their wings after flight and lay eggs in the warm season. The laying female lives for several years. Working females not only feed the larvae, but also clean them, transferring them from the top of the anthill to the bottom (depending on the weather) and back. Worker ants feed each other.

How wood ants hibernate

For the winter, forest red ants climb into the very depths of the anthill, where the temperature does not drop as much as on the surface. There, having gathered in a tight lump, they become numb until spring. In the spring, when the snow melts and the earth warms up, the anthill comes to life again. After wintering, ants are more active in destroying insect pests.

Reveal the connection between ants and the forest

It is estimated that a family of one anthill destroys from 10-80 thousand insects per day, of which 80 percent are pests. It is believed that ants from four medium-sized anthills are able to protect a hectare of forest from pests. To protect the forest, where there are no ants, they are moved there artificially. Some people sometimes stir anthills with sticks, disrupting the normal life of ants, which die from this. Thus, the forest is deprived of reliable defenders. Ants cannot be disturbed.

Ants are very useful insects: protecting anthills, we preserve our forests.

Ants are insects that cannot live alone, but live in colonies of up to a million inhabitants. They are very self-organized. They belong to the order Hymenoptera. Promote soil fertility. Many plants grow faster near anthills. They protect plants from pests. At the same time, the ant insect itself serves as food for many species of birds and animals. There are over 14,000 different types of ants in our world. An ant can lift 20 times its own weight!

Family: Ants

Class: Insects

Order: Hymenoptera

Type: Arthropod

Kingdom: Animals

Domain: Eukaryotes

Ant Anatomy

The whole body of an ant is divided into three parts, like any insect - the head, chest and abdomen, as well as 6 paws. Ants can be divided into three types: males, females and workers. Males and females have wings, while workers do not. There are some types of ants where all ants have wings, including workers. Workers do all the dirty work in the colony - getting food, building nests, caring for eggs, protecting from enemies, and so on.

The size of ants depends on their species. The smallest species of ants start at 1 mm in size, while the largest species can reach up to 30-50 mm in length. They see well at a distance of 3-4 centimeters. The colors are also varied and depend on the type of insect - yellow, red, brown, black and even green and bluish. With the help of antennae, they interact with the environment. The jaw is a tool in the performance of various work. Some types of ants have a sting that allows you to defend yourself from enemies.

The insect ant has compound eyes, which consist of numerous lenses, but the vision is rather weak, and some underground species are generally blind. In addition to the compound eyes, the ant has three simple eyes. At the end of each foot, the ant has hooked claws that help them climb vertical surfaces without problems.

Where does the ant live?

Ants are distributed throughout the world, except for the mainland Antarctica. They live in huge families in anthills that can build in the soil, under stones, in wood. There are species of ants that live in other people's anthills instead of building their own nests. There are species of ants that can keep slaves in the form of ants of other species, using their labor for their own benefit.

What does an ant eat?

The main food of an insect ant is plant sap, a sweet liquid that is secreted by aphids, as well as small insects. Some species of ants eat plant seeds and fungi.

Ant lifestyle

Ants are evolutionarily advanced insects. This is due to the fact that they live in huge social groups, where there is a clear division of labor, communication skills are developed, and individuals are able to coordinate their actions. Some species of ants have a developed language capable of conveying complex information. Ants protect themselves with formic acid, which they are able to produce, as well as strong mandibles.

Each family of ants consists of males, several reproductive females (they are called queens or queens), and a large number of workers, consisting of sterile females (females with an underdeveloped reproductive system). The uterus differs from all other ants in its larger size and structure of the chest, as well as the presence of wings, which it bites off after fertilization.

At the same time, the family has a clear division of labor and relationships between individuals, which makes the ant society similar to the human one. At first glance, it may seem that the ants have the main uterus, but in fact, the guiding force is the workers, who can destroy females for low fertility, destroy excess larvae, or change their diet.

Ant breeding

Mating in ants begins with a nuptial flight. Males take off first and spray pheromones. Due to which the females take off after them. Mating occurs on the fly or on the ground. After some time, the males die, and the females choose a place for the nest.

Ants have several stages of development: an egg, a larva that emerges from the egg, a pupa and an adult (an adult insect). The sex of an insect depends on whether the egg is fertilized or not. From fertilized eggs, females are born, and if the egg is not fertilized, then males. The uterus (reproductive female) is responsible for the reproduction of ants. She only mates once in her life. At the same time, she spends the sperm received from the male throughout the entire time. She then proceeds to lay eggs. The eggs hatch into larvae. The larvae are inactive, they are fed by workers.

Ant eggs

Male ants emerge from unfertilized eggs. Most often they have wings. Their role is to fertilize young winged females. Some time after their fertilization, the males die.

Ant larvae

The nutrition of the larva determines who the future ant will become - the uterus (queen) or the labor force. In this way, ants control the number of fertile females and infertile females. The ant larva goes through four stages of molting, then stops feeding, excretes the contents of the intestine and turns into a chrysalis. In some ant species, the larva can weave a cocoon before pupation. When the pupal stage is over, other ants help to free themselves from the cocoon, since the ant itself is not able to free itself from the cocoon. For the first days of their lives, workers help the queen care for the eggs, and then move on to other work.

Ant chrysalis

Different types of ants have differences in reproduction. In most species, the female mates once in her life, but there are species where the female can mate several times in her life. In some species of ants, workers are able to lay eggs, and some species are even capable of cloning. The life expectancy of the queen can reach up to 20 years, and the life expectancy of the worker up to 3 years.

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Ants are insects from the order Hymenoptera. We all know that they live in colonies, they have a queen, they are very hardworking and strong. But there are some things that not everyone knows about. Let's see interesting facts about ants.

So, the most interesting facts about ants:

• Ants are, of course, predators. But despite this, they keep their livestock. Aphids act as such livestock. Ants graze aphids, take care of them, protecting them from other insects, and even milk them. Thus, aphids secrete a special liquid that ants are happy to use as food. And of course, aphids serve as food for them. In general, ants are the only living creatures other than humans that raise livestock.

• Ants have clear responsibilities: builders, soldiers, foragers (those who are looking for food). If the forager returned several times with nothing, then he is executed and allowed to eat himself.

The dark-footed ant spider (Myrmarachne melanotarsa) looks exactly like an ant.

• There are some species that are like two drops of water similar to ants, except that ants have 6 legs, and spiders 8. Such spiders, as a rule, use this resemblance to protect themselves from birds and other insects, since ants are not the subject of gastronomic passion for no one (except, perhaps, anteaters). But some such spiders, on the contrary, use this similarity to hunt the ants themselves. They tighten their two paws, enter the anthill, catch and kill the ant, after which they take it out of the anthill, like a dead comrade, and eat it themselves.

• Ants can not only punish, but also care. If an ant is injured, they will nurse him until he recovers, and if an ant is crippled, other ants will also take care of him and bring him food as long as he is able to ask for it.

• Most ants are working class and all worker ants are females with an underdeveloped reproductive system.

• Ants have no right to eat the food they have found. First, they must bring all the food they find to the anthill, after which distribution takes place.

• In one of the common delicacy dishes is Escamole. These are ant larvae. Such a dish costs about $ 90 per kilogram.

• The ant queen (womb) lives an average of 15 years and mates only once in her life, but constantly produces her offspring.

• If the ant is idle and does nothing for no apparent reason, then it is kicked out of the anthill. But it is also interesting that this applies even to the queen. Ants may kick out a queen if she produces few offspring and then choose a new one.

• American entomologist Derek Morley followed the behavior of ants and found out that when they wake up, they stretch all 6 of their legs, after which they open their jaws wide, which means that ants also stretch and yawn when they wake up.

• Many people think that ants and termites are almost the same species, but they are not. Ants are closer to bees and wasps, and termites are closer to cockroaches!

• In some tribes in South America, the rite of passage of a boy into a man goes like this: the boy puts on a sleeve full of ants. After numerous bites, the boy's hands swell, become paralyzed and even turn black, but this disappears with time.

• Formic acid has proven itself very well as an analgesic for diseases such as arthritis, arthrosis, rheumatism, gout, etc.

• Many species of ants can stay under water for several days and nothing will happen to them.

• Ants can always find their way to their nest. This is because the ants leave behind a trail of pheromones that they use to find their way home.

We provide you with 25 interesting facts about ants.

25. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous between 110 and 130 million years ago. This means that they are as ancient as the dinosaurs, but unlike them, the ants managed to survive.

24. Ant colonies vary in size. While some colonies consist of a few dozen individuals, others can be formed from millions of ants.

23. Ants have colonized almost every piece of land on our planet. Except for Antarctica, the Arctic, and a handful of islands.

22. There are over 12,000 known species of ants that vary in shape, color and size. They are from 0.07 to 5 centimeters in length.

21. Termites are often incorrectly considered ants, but in fact, they belong to the order Isoptera, which is closer to cockroaches than ants.

20. Some scientific studies show that approximately 10,000,000,000,000,000 ants live on Earth at any given time. Ants are estimated to make up about 15-20 percent of the total terrestrial animal biomass, which exceeds that of vertebrates.

19. Queen ants can live up to 30 years, which is about 100 times longer than single insects of the same size. Worker ants live from 1 to 3 years.

18. Ants can "enslave" members of other ant species by holding them captive and forcing them to do work for the colony.

17. The largest ant colonies are called "super colonies". They create giant anthills that can be thousands of kilometers long. The largest super colony spans over 5,954 kilometers and has over 1 billion ants.

16. Paraponera clavata, commonly known as "bullet ants", have the most painful bite. According to some victims, their bite is similar to being shot, hence the name of the insect. All-consuming pain can continue, unabated, up to 24 hours.

15. Ants are known to be able to lift and transport an object about 50 times their own body weight, but a recent scientific study from Ohio State University suggests that they are capable of carrying more than their own mass. own body 5000 times, which is truly incredible.

14. Ants have "multifaceted eyes," which are made up of numerous tiny lenses attached to each other. Ant eyes are good for fast motion detection, but don't produce a high resolution image.

13. Weightlifting isn't the only sport the ants are good at. They are also excellent runners, able to run 7.62 centimeters per second. If a person could run as fast as an ant, he could run at almost 55 kilometers per hour.

12. With 250,000 brain cells in its tiny head, the ant is believed to be the smartest insect.

11. Ants do not have ears, but they hear by picking up ground vibrations with special sensors on their feet and knees.

10. Each ant colony has its own distinctive smell. Therefore, attackers can be immediately recognized.

9. The only duty of the ant queen is to lay eggs. The eggs are then taken care of by workers who move them deep into the nest to protect them from the cold every night.

8. Some species (such as roaming ants) are nomadic - they only live in the same place for a short time and then they pack their food, eggs, larvae and queen and move on.

7. Ants can grow and cultivate a fungus and transmit it not only within individual species, but also exchange it with other species that grow fungi.

6. While the sting of the bullet ant is considered the most painful, the sting of the black bulldog ant can even be fatal to humans. Fortunately, an antidote has been developed for it.

5. Ants may be the only creatures (other than mammals) that can learn through interactive learning. Experienced food gatherers have been documented leading their "students" to newly discovered food. The student received knowledge with the help of his leading mentor. The leader could even determine the student's learning progress and slow down when the student fell behind.

4. Antquarium, a special container for keeping ants as pets sold worldwide, was originally developed by NASA for the purpose of studying animals in space.

3. In addition to the usual methods of finding their way back to the anthill after foraging, such as visual orientation or using their antennae, some ant species are even able to use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate.

2. Ants have a wide range of movements such as jumping, sliding or rafting. Some species are also notable for their ability to form living chains to cross water or vegetation.

1. In some countries, ants and their larvae are eaten as a delicacy. The eggs of two species of ants are used in the Mexican national dish called escamoles. The eggs are considered a type of insect roe and can sell for $40 per 450 grams.

More than 100 million years ago, ants already inhabited the Earth and practically did not undergo evolutionary changes. And today these insects accompany people wherever they are: in their homes, on the way to work, on vacation, and all because, with their extremely small size, they make up to 25% of the biomass living on the surface of the planet.

Although there are more than 13,000 species of them, and they are distributed almost everywhere except Antarctica, people do not know all the interesting facts about ants.

Industrious insects

There is a science that studies the habitat and lifestyle of these insects, which is called myrmecology. Dozens of world-class scientists, starting from the 18th century, have devoted themselves to studying them, but insects still amaze with their ability to adapt to circumstances, the environment and the ability to completely restore their anthill even if it is destroyed.

The data collected by scientists can be combined into 10 interesting facts about ants, although there are many more.

The first fact that almost all ants, regardless of where they live, is an amazing industriousness. To an outside observer, it may seem that insects move randomly from the anthill and back, but in fact each of them has duties, for failure to comply with which punishment and even the death penalty can be imposed.

Building a nest, protecting it, keeping it clean and getting food are far from the only duties of these hardworking creatures. The basis of the colony is a formed family, each member of which belongs to a certain caste.

Ant family

About ants relate to the position of insects in the family hierarchy. This is the second point that allows the colony to exist for many years and expand its possessions.

Any anthill begins with a small number of individuals, which increases to several million, occupying large territories. Conventionally, the family of these insects can be subdivided into females, males and "hard workers".

No matter what position the insects occupy in the family, everyone must properly fulfill their duties - the queen can be killed in the same way as the worker ant. Everything is subordinated to the concept of the benefit and significance of each individual for the development and strengthening of the colony.

The external difference between representatives of different castes is manifested in the presence of wings in males and females and their absence in working individuals.

The mode of birth also depends on the "origin". For example, queens and workers are born from fertilized eggs, and males from unfertilized eggs. Therefore, red, red and 3 stages of growing up - egg, larva and pupa. No less interesting facts from the life of ants concern their queens.

The life and work of the ant queen

Each anthill can contain from one to several queens, it all depends on the size of the colony. The third important factor for the full growth of the family is the vital activity of his female. The surprising thing is that the queen mates only once, and the resulting sperm should last her for the rest of her life, which lasts from 12 to 20 years.

In some species of ants, the female mates with one male, following him on a mating flight, while in others this happens with several dozen males. After fertilization, the queen chooses whether to stay in the same anthill or organize a new one.

If she leaves the nest, she must not only find a suitable place to organize a new colony, but also arrange a "maternity ward" where she will lay her first eggs. To maintain their lives, the females of some species of ants, leaving the old nest, take fungal spores to organize and grow a garden, which they plant in a new place. Well, aren't these interesting facts about ants for children?

Ability to grow and breed food

Only 4 species of creatures on earth consciously breed "cattle" and grow plants so that with a sedentary lifestyle, the family does not need food - these are ants, bark beetles, termites and people. At the same time, insects have several million years more experience than humans. This is the 4th fact from the life of these insects.

The tenth fact is the unique ability of ants to clone themselves. This is typical, for example, of the Amazons. Entire colonies of females use parthenogenesis to reproduce their own kind without the participation of males.

Ants are one of the most highly organized insects on the planet. Their ability to cooperate and self-sacrifice for the good of the colony, high adaptability, activity resembling reasonable in complexity - all this has long attracted the attention of scientists. And today, science knows numerous interesting facts about ants, some of which are known only to a narrow circle of specialists, and some refute established myths. For example…

Ants are the most numerous insects on Earth

According to the calculations of one of the world's most respected myrmecologists, Edward Wilson, there are from 1 to 10 quadrillion ants living on Earth today - that is, from 10 to the 15th power to 10 to the 16th power of individual ants.

Incredible, but true - for every living person there are about a million of these creatures, and their total mass is approximately equal to the total mass of all people.

On a note

Myrmecology is the science of ants. Accordingly, a myrmecologist is a scientist who is mainly engaged in the study of this group of insects. It was thanks to the works of such scientists that very interesting facts about ants became known, which expanded the ideas of science about these insects.

On the Pacific island of Christmas, there are about 2,200 ants per square meter of soil surface and 10 nest entrances. And, for example, in the savannas of West Africa, there are 2 billion ants and 740,000 nests for every square kilometer of area!

No other group of insects reaches such a population size and density.

Among ants there are the most dangerous insects in the world

Perhaps, neither poisonous snakes, nor large predators, nor spiders are afraid of the inhabitants of equatorial Africa as they are - a column of several million insects, whose soldiers are armed with powerful jaws, destroys almost all life in its path. Such trips are the key to the survival of the anthill.

More interesting facts: wandering ants are one of the most common. Their soldier can reach a length of 3 cm, the uterus - 5 cm.

When the inhabitants of a village learn that such a colony is to pass through their settlement, they leave their homes, taking all their pets with them. If you forget a goat in a stall, the ants will bite it to death. But they also destroy all cockroaches, rats and mice in the villages.

But the bullet ant is considered the most dangerous ant in the world: 30 of its bites per 1 kg of body weight of the victim are fatal. The pain from their bite exceeds in strength that from the bites of any wasps, and is felt throughout the day.

Among the Indian tribes of South America, for the initiation of a boy into a man, a sleeve is put on the hand of the initiate with live ants placed in it. After the bites, the boy's hands are paralyzed and swollen for several days, sometimes shock occurs and the fingers turn black.

Ant eggs are not really eggs.

What is commonly referred to as ant eggs are actually developing ant larvae. Ant eggs themselves are very small and of no practical interest to humans.

But the larvae are willingly eaten in Africa and Asia - such a dish is rich in protein and fats. In addition, ant larvae are an ideal food for nestlings of various ornamental birds.

Ants are a famous delicacy

The most famous ant dish is wood ant sauce, which is used as a condiment in Southeast Asia.

Honey ants are very interesting in this regard. In each of their anthills, there are from several tens to several hundred ants used by the rest of the colony as food reservoirs. They are specially fattened during the rainy season, their abdomen is filled with a mixture of water and sugars and swells to such a size that the insect cannot move.

In the dry season, other individuals from the anthill lick the secret constantly secreted by these living barrels and can do without food. Such ants are actively harvested where they live - in Mexico and the southern United States - and eaten. They taste like honey.

Another interesting fact of a gastronomic nature: in Thailand and Myanmar, ant larvae are used as a delicacy and sold by weight in the markets. And in Mexico, large ant larvae are eaten in the same way as fish caviar in Russia.

Ants and termites are completely different insects.

Indeed, ants belong to the order Hymenoptera, and their closest relatives are wasps, bees, sawflies and riders.

Termites are a rather isolated group of insects close to cockroaches. Some scientists even include them in the order of cockroaches.

It is interesting

The complex social structure of a termite mound, reminiscent of that of an anthill, is just one example of convergence in the animal kingdom, the development of similar traits in members of different groups who find themselves in similar conditions.

It is noteworthy that a mammal lives in equatorial Africa - a naked mole rat, whose colonies also resemble ant colonies: only one female breeds in mole rats, and the rest of the individuals serve her, feed and expand their burrows.

The vast majority of ants are females.

All the worker ants and soldier ants in every nest are females, incapable of reproduction. They develop from fertilized eggs, while males develop from unfertilized ones.

An interesting fact about ants: whether a worker ant or a future uterus will grow out of an egg depends on how the larva feeds. The worker ants themselves can decide how to feed the brood and how many future queens to feed.

Some do not have a uterus as such, and all working females can breed. There are also species in the nests of which several queens live. A classic example of this is the nests of domestic ants (Pharaoh ants).

The queen ant can live up to 20 years

The usual lifespan of a queen who has managed to establish a colony is 5-6 years, but some live up to 12 or even 20 years! In the world of insects, this is a record: most single insects, even of a larger size, live on the strength of several months. Only in some cicadas and beetles, the full life span, taking into account the larval stage, can reach 6-7 years.

This interesting fact does not mean at all that all queens have such a life expectancy: most of the fertilized females die after the summer, and a significant part of the established colonies also die out for various reasons in the first year of their existence.

There are slave ants

The connections of different ants with each other are so diverse that even people can sometimes envy them.

For example, in a whole genus of Amazonian ants, worker ants do not know how to feed themselves and care for the nest. But they know how to attack the nests of other, smaller species of ants, and steal larvae from them. The ants that develop from these larvae will continue to care for other than their queens and soldiers.

In other species, this behavior has reached the point where the uterus simply penetrates into someone else's anthill, kills the queen living there, and worker ants recognize her as their own and take care of her and her offspring. The anthill itself is then doomed: only females capable of capturing the anthill of another species will develop from the eggs of such a female, and with the death of all the working ants, the colony will be empty.

There are also benign cases of slavery. For example, the queen abducts several pupae to establish a colony, and the ants that develop from them help her at the very initial stage of colony development. Further, the colony develops by the descendants of the uterus itself.

Ants can learn

Interesting facts about ants related to the phenomenon of learning attract the close attention of many scientists.

For example, in some species of ants, those individuals who managed to find food teach others to find a place with food. Moreover, if, for example, in bees this information is transmitted in the process of a special dance, then the ant specifically teaches another to pass a particular route.

Video: ants build a living bridge with their bodies

Experiments also verified that during training, the teacher ant reaches the desired point four times slower than it would get to it on its own.

Ants know how to farm

This ant has long been known - South American ants use the most complex food chain in the animal kingdom:

• some members of the colony gnaw off a large piece of a leaf of a tree and bring it to the anthill

• smaller individuals, never leaving the colony, chew the leaves, mix them with excrement and parts of a special mycelium
• the resulting mass is formed in special areas of the anthill - real beds - where fungi develop on it, providing ants with protein food.

It is interesting in ants that they do not eat the fruiting bodies themselves - they feed on special growths of mycelium. Some members of the colony constantly bite off the emerging fruiting bodies, preventing the mycelium from wasting useful substances on useless legs and hats.

It is interesting

When a fertilized young female leaves the nest, she carries away a tiny piece of mycelium in a special pocket on her head. It is this reserve that is the basis for the well-being of the future colony.

In addition to ants, only man and termites have learned to cultivate other living organisms for their own benefit.

Relationship between ants and aphids

The shepherd inclinations of ants are known to many: some anthills are so dependent on a flock of aphids that they also die when the latter die out. Scientists believe that the release of the secret at one time was a protective reaction of aphids from the attack of enemies, only the secret itself was sharply smelling and toxic.

But one day, natural selection suggested to pests that ants can not be scared away, but lured and forced to protect themselves. Thus, a unique example of a symbiosis of two completely different groups of insects arose: aphids share sweet, healthy and satisfying secretions with ants, and ants protect them.

Aphid secretions that attract ants are called honeydew. In addition to aphids, scale insects, mealybugs and some cicadas share it with ants.

Interestingly, many insects have learned to secrete an attractive secret for ants in order to penetrate their nests. Some beetles, caterpillars and butterflies feed on the stocks of the ants themselves in the anthill, while the ants do not touch them precisely because of their ability to share honeydew. Some of these guests in anthills banally devour ant larvae, and the ants themselves are ready to forgive their treachery for a drop of sweet secret.

The above are just some interesting facts about ants. In the biology of each species of these insects, you can find something unique and original.

It is thanks to this uniqueness and abundance of specific adaptive features that they managed to become one of the most numerous and advanced groups of arthropods in general.

Interesting video: the battle between two colonies of ants

1. Ants are the oldest of all insect species, over 100 million years old. Today they live all over the world except Iceland, Greenland and Antarctica.

2. There are about 8800 species of ants in the world. All of them are very diverse; so the large red forest ants are very different from the small black ones, which sometimes climb into sugar bowls in summer cottages.

3. In terms of their social structure, ants are the most evolutionarily advanced family of insects and the creatures closest to humans on Earth. They form complex families, consisting of several castes with a division of labor. This allows them to coordinate their actions when performing assigned tasks.

4. The main occupation of ants is the preparation of food supplies for the winter. They hide the grains harvested at night and take them out to dry in the sun during the day. This drying they do in good weather, and never take out their provisions before the rain, as if anticipating a change in the weather.

5. In the anthill, all roles are strictly distributed, and there is a strict hierarchy. The main queen is the female laying eggs. She controls the entire nest. Worker ants are also females, but they cannot produce offspring while the queen is alive. Its life span is 15-20 years. And males live only one season, die immediately after mating and do not participate in the life of the anthill.

6. Ants always move in formation and unmistakably find their way to their nest. This is due to the fact that the ants leave behind a trail of pheromones, which they then use to navigate. Also, with the help of pheromones, they learn about the well-being of their queen.

7. The food that the ant finds, he does not eat, but delivers it up the chain of command, and only then, under the strict control of the queen, is it distributed throughout the anthill.

8. Ants are very protective of their offspring. However, there are some types of ants, which, for their vampirism, were nicknamed "dracula ants". These adult ants feed on the blood of their larvae.

9. Ants are very fair. They supplement their fellows who were injured in the line of duty, but they are very strict with forager ants that stop bringing food to the anthill - they simply kill them.

10. Ants are very hardworking. They lift a load, about a hundred times heavier than their own weight, are constantly engaged in socially useful work: they prepare food, care for offspring, graze their "livestock" - aphids, and at the same time they never sleep.

This post about ants for kids will tell you a lot of useful information about these hardworking, small insects.

About ants for children

Ant: description for children

You will never confuse an ant with other insects. They are very active, wingless, fussy and constantly on the go. In nature, a solitary ant is rarely seen, even when they are away from home. Such insects are called workers. In one nest, their number can vary from a thousand to a million individuals. An ant family may have one queen or several. The queen is constantly in the nest and does not leave it, as her wings are too weak to fly. She makes only one flight - marriage, and then on a warm, windless day.

After fertilization, the males die, and the females descend to the ground and shed their wings. They are looking for a secluded place where they can breed. However, worker ants often discover their hiding place and drag them into their nest. Thus, there can be several queens in one nest.

Where do ants live?

These insects live in nests or anthills. Ant nests are usually connected to the ground. They can be in the form of bulk soil mounds or made from the remains of vegetation. These nests are the most common. Some insects live without bulk mounds, simply in the soil or settle under stones, in wood.

How do ants live? Insect nutrition

Mostly all ants are predators that feed their larvae with insects and other animal food. The basis of their nutrition: caterpillars and larvae. Worker ants also consume flowering vegetation and milking aphids.

Children about the ant: how do they communicate?

To communicate with each other, they use a variety of signals: touching another ant with their feet, antennae or head. They also use chemical signals. If they are disturbed, then the insects get into a defensive posture: they rise on their hind legs and slightly tilt their abdomen forward. The ant releases a special liquid, which consists of an alarm substance and formic acid.

Ants that live in the same nest have the same smell. Thus, they recognize each other and do not let other insects into their home.

• Ants are the oldest insects: they are over 100 million years old. Today they can be found everywhere except Greenland, Iceland and Antarctica.
• The main occupation of the insect is the preparation of food supplies for the winter.
• They only move in formation.
• Some ants are very poisonous. For example, if you are bitten by a Paraponera clavata ant, the pain will last more than a day.
• Ants are the smartest insects. The brain consists of 250 thousand cells.
• Ant eggs are eaten in Mexico. The dish is called "escamoles".

We hope that the essay about ants helped you prepare for the lesson. And you can leave your little story about ants through the comment form below.