Ant Colonies facts

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Ants will refuse “medical” help from their colony if they know they are mortally wounded. Rather than waste the colony’s resources and energy on futile rehabilitation, the wounded ant flails its legs forcing help to abandon them.

how ant colonies work?

A colony of ants with no queen, no males and no offspring, comprised entirely of non-reproductive females, that live in a disused nuclear bunker in Poland. The colony is supplemented by ants falling through holes in the ventilation which cannot escape.

What do ant colonies look like?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what happens to ant colonies when it rains. Here are 50 of the best facts about Ant Colonies In House Walls and Ant Colonies Game I managed to collect.

what kills ant colonies?

Ants can accidentally misinterpret the chemical trails left by other ants and start walking in circles. If too many members of the colony join in, it can kill the whole colony in what is sometimes known as the 'Death Spiral'
Ants can combine multiple colonies into "Supercolonies" which contain multiple queens. One of the largest on record included an estimated 306 million worker ants and one million queen ants living in 45,000 interconnected nests.
In 2009, scientists discovered that a single, ant mega-colony had colonized much of the world on a scale rivaled only by human civilization, including 1 super colony spanning 3,700 miles along the Mediterranean coast.
Argentine ants have a worldwide mega-colony, and if they get in an airplane and travel to a different continent, they will be welcomed in the foreign branch of the colony
Hero ants. These ants live in cliffs/high places and latch onto intruders of the colony. They then fling themselves off the cliff, taking the intruder with them.
There is a species of ant that will infiltrate a fire ant colony, kill the queen, then take her place. The workers raise the impostor's children, which then fly off to infest more colonies. They are being considered as a biological method to control the spread of fire ants.
A study showed that 2.6% of Ants in a colony are always active. Over 25% are observed to never be working, and 71.9% are inactive half of the time.
Ants can get caught in a circular pheromone trail, so that the whole colony pinwheels forever until they die.

ant colonies facts — What happens when two ant colonies meet?

Why do ant colonies fight?

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There is a bizarre colony of displaced Ants living in an abandoned Polish nuclear weapons bunker

Concrete was poured into an ant colony, and then excavated. It spanned 50 sq meters underground, and went 8 meters deep. - source

Marauder ants have a special class of "supermajors" which they will ride like a bus to work, or into battle like elephant Calvary. These large class of ants in the colony serve as living heavy duty tools for the much smaller workers. - source

Ants use "social immunization" – if one is infected with a fungus, they still lick the ant, spreading it throughout the colony. This practice both kills some of the spores, and builds immune resistance.

Emergence, the phenomenon of complex systems, like ant colonies and cells, coming from simpler pieces. - source

What happens to ant colonies when it rains?

There is a species of ant that breeds none of it's own workers, but instead steals eggs from other ant species, forcing them into slavery to work and feed their colony.

How to get rid of ant colonies in yard?

19th century biologist Sir John Lubbock experimented on ants by getting them drunk. He discovered that sober ants would carry their drunken ant comrades back to their nest, if they were from the same colony but they would throw drunk strangers into the ditch.

Argentine ants in Europe have taken over a 3,700-mile stretch of coast along the Mediterranean Sea. This single colony is the largest ever discovered and it’s wider than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

A particular species of beetle infiltrates ant colonies by mimicking the sounds that the queen makes, and then moves around the colony at will, preying on ants, and is "treated like royalty", according to a study.

Some ants develop as 'undertakers,' carrying dead bodies and waste away from the colony, and exhibit different behavioral patterns than the rest of the colony.

The fanged pitcher plant and the carpenter ant have a mutualistic relationship whereby the plant’s stem provides a home for small colonies of ants who in turn keep the chemistry of the pitcher’s liquid balanced by removing large insects from inside, preventing the liquid from spoiling.

What happens when two ant colonies meet?

Male ants, which come from unfertilized eggs, typically serve one purpose: to mate with a queen. Males are usually in short supply, and a queen produces male eggs only when it's time to make more colonies. Then a queen produces eggs that give rise to both males and queens (reproductive females)

Ophiocordyceps unilateralis has been known to destroy entire ant colonies. In response, ants have evolved the ability to sense that a member of the colony is infected; healthy ants will carry the dying one far away from the colony in order to avoid fungal spore exposure.

There is a species of ant, Novomessor cockerelli, that competes with red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus) by plugging holes in their colony with rocks to keep them from leaving.

During a rainstorm, the mangrove ant colony will send a soldier ant to plug up the entrance hole with its head.

Ants of the species Conomyrma bicolor pick up stones and other small objects with their mandibles and drop them down the vertical entrances of rival colonies, allowing workers to forage for food without competition.

How do ant colonies work?

If living fire ants are coated with oleic acid, their nest mates will think they are dead, and carry them repeatedly to their colony's cemetery.

There are species of ants that capture brood of other species, and turn them into slaves for their own colony. The enslaved ants are usually tricked into obedience but they can also rebel, killing their enslavers and protecting their native colony from further raids.

Ants are very cooperative animals. They have two stomachs, one for their own needs and other designed to store food for other members of the colony. What looks like kissing of ants is actually "mouth-to-mouth" feeding, known as trophallaxis. This method of feeding provides food from the 'social" stomach.

Many philodendrons produce sugary liquid which attracts ants. Colonies of ants provide protection against pest insects in the wild.

Pavement ant colonies often engage in "sidewalk battles", resulting in tens of thousands of ant casualties.

Argentine ants have formed a super colony that spans across Japan, Australia, Europe, and the United States and will not fight each other

Recently scientists shot a colony of ants into space to test their adaptive capability. At first they were thrown in a corner floating but within a few minutes they all grabbed on to the side of the box enabling themselves for exploration.

Honeypot ants are capable of engorging themselves and becoming food/nutrients for their fellow ants. They can become so swollen that they become completely immobile and line the ceilings of the ants' colony.

There is a "zombie ant virus" that goes undetected in colonies. It causes the ant to bite the bottom of a leaf before death, spreading the virus to other vegetation, and other ant colonies.

The Malaysian exploding ant protects its colony by blowing itself up, spraying poison on attackers. Often, small armies of these ants will march up to a predator and self destruct en masse.

Naked mole rats form colonies of 20 to 300 individuals. They live in organized society with established hierarchy (like ants).

There is a species of ant from Malaysia which in order to protect its colony from predators, will reluctantly explode itself, spewing a sticky inedible goo with the hope that predators will get deterred by it and leave the colony alone.

While most ants will have sex with and take slaves from other colonies, Argentine ants prefer to keep a pure bloodline, and murder any ant from another colony they can get there feelers on.

Some species of ants farm aphids, protecting the adults while eating and their eggs, for the purpose of milking them for the sugary secretion they produce, honeydew. The Queen's of these dairying ant species even go as far as to take aphid eggs with them when they go to found new colonies.

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