How are responsibilities distributed in an ant family? Detailed answer

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How are responsibilities distributed in an ant family? Detailed answer

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How are responsibilities distributed in an ant family?

Ants are social insects living in complex nests in families from several tens to hundreds of thousands of individuals. The family includes wingless workers (females), as well as winged males (appear only for a short time and die after mating) and founding females.

Fertilized females lose their wings, establish new nests (or remain in their nest), and lay eggs; live up to 20 years. In some species, there may be several such females in the nest - "queens".

Worker ants perform different functions: foragers, supplying the nest with food; soldiers guarding it; individuals that serve as reservoirs for liquid food (the so-called honey butterflies), etc. Some ants, the so-called slave owners, do not have their own workers, but use those of other species.

Among the worker ants, the so-called scouts are especially interesting. The scout planted on the feeder during the experiment immediately returns to the nest, and, moreover, by the shortest route, and then reports information about the location of the feeder to other ants of the group - foragers.

Contact between scout and forager is accompanied by numerous impacts of antennae and mandibular palps. In this way, the scout mobilizes the group, which then transports food. It is curious, by the way, that only small ants are scouts. When one of the members of the group is withdrawn, it is the scouts who "recruit" new ones and use "old acquaintances" for this.

The significance of the scouts was especially well manifested in experiments with a T-shaped maze, in which the ants had to avoid a weak electric shock. The new ant could correctly orient itself in the labyrinth in advance only if it had previously had contact with a scout who had been there.

Author: Kondrashov A.P.

Random interesting fact from the Great Encyclopedia:

Why did the asteroid Aten get its name?

Discovered on January 7, 1976, the tiny asteroid Aten (about 800 meters across) is named after the ancient Egyptian sun god because its entire orbit lies inside the earth's orbit.

The maximum distance of the Aten from the Sun is 0,966 astronomical units, or the average distance of the Earth from the Sun.

Two more similar asteroids are known: Ra-Shalom and Hathor. The maximum removal of the first of them from the Sun does not exceed 0,832 astronomical units, the second - 0,844 astronomical units.

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