Ants

Most ants are females. In fact only the princes are males. Nearing mating season the queen produces large amounts of male unfertilized egg to cope up with the short supply of males and ensure successful breeding. During mating seaon a number of ants swarm outside their colony to take part or root for for the "marriage fligt" wherein prince and princess ants take off from their colony , mate in the air and fly off to a new place to start a new colony. The only role of male ants is to mate with the queen and they die alone shortly after mating.

The life of an ant starts with an egg.If the egg is fertilized, the ant will be female (diploid); if not, it will be male (haploid).Ants are holometabulousand develop by complete metamorphosispassing through larval and pupalstages before they become adults.Food is given to the larvae by a process called trophallaxis in which an ant regurgitates food previously held in its crop for communal storage. Larvae and pupae need to be kept at fairly constant temperatures to ensure proper development, and so are often moved around the various brood chambers within the colony.Most of the common ant species breed in the same way. Only the queen and breeding females have the ability to mate.he male ants, called drones, along with the breeding females emerge from pupation with wings and do nothing throughout their life except eat and mate.Then, all the winged breeding ants take flight. Mating occurs in flight and the males die shortly afterward. The females that survive land and seek a suitable place to begin a colony. There, they break off their own wings and begin to lay eggs, which they care for. Spermobtained during their nuptial flight is stored and used to fertilize all future eggs produced.The first worker begin to serve the colony immediately. They enlarge the nest, forage for food, and care for the other eggs. This is how most new colonies start.A few species that have multiple queens can start a new colony as a queen from the old nest takes a number of workers to a new site and founds a colony there.Ant colonies can be long-lived. The queens themselves can live for up to 30 years, while workers live from one to three years. Males, however, are more transitory, surviving only a few weeks.

The life of an ant starts with an egg. If the egg is fertilized, the ant will be female (diploid); if not, it will be male (haploid).Ants are holometabulousand develop by complete metamorphosis,passing through larval and pupalstages before they become adults.Food is given to the larvae by a process called trophallaxis in which an ant regurgitates food previously held in its crop for communal storage.Larvae and pupae need to be kept at fairly constant temperatures to ensure proper development, and so are often moved around the various brood chambers within the colony.Most of the common ant species breed in the same way. Only the queen and breeding females have the ability to mate.The male ants, called drones, along with the breeding females emerge from pupation with wings and do nothing throughout their life except eat and mate. All the winged breeding ants take flight. Mating occurs in flight and the males die shortly afterward. The females that survive land and seek a suitable place to begin a colony. There, they break off their own wings and begin to lay eggs, which they care for. Spermobtained during their nuptial flight is stored and used to fertilize all future eggs produced.The first workers to hatch are weak but they begin to serve the colony immediately. They enlarge the nest, forage for food, and care for the other eggs. This is how most new colonies start. A few species that have multiple queens can start a new colony as a queen from the old nest takes a number of workers to a new site and founds a colony there.Ant colonies can be long-lived. The queens themselves can live for up to 30 years, while workers live from one to three years. Males, however, are more transitory, surviving only a few weeks.

Ants, are classified in the family Formicidae. These insects are native to nearly all terrestrial habitats and all parts of the globe except for Antarctica, Iceland, Greenland, some parts of Polynesia, and a few remote Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean islands(3), and are often extremely abundant locally(2). Though there are over 8,800 species known (and perhaps over 11,000 more that have not been described)(3), ants generally have a distinctive body structure: while they have, like many insects, a head, thorax (the midsection), and abdomen (the rear section), their “waist” connecting their thorax to the main part of their abdomen is unusually thin and pinched (1,3). Most ants are also characterized by the presence of a metapleural gland, an organ that produces a chemical called phenylacetic acid that is used for fighting bacteria and fungi(2,3); this gland may have helped ants colonize the moist environments where most ant species now live(2). Like only a few other groups of insects, ants have evolved a complex system of social interaction that qualifies them as “eusocial” insects(2,3). They live and work together in multi-generational colonies that are generally organized in “castes” of queens and males (who reproduce) and worker females (who cannot reproduce)(2,3), communicating via a chemical communication system that may be more complicated than that of any other kind of animal(2). In addition to these extraordinary social structures, ants have complex and extremely important relationships with many other species, giving them a central role in ecosystems across the globe(2). Some ants have partnerships with fungi(2). Some ants defend plants from herbivores, help plants reproduce by pollinating their flowers and spreading their seeds, and help plants grow by turning over the soil (which keeps it rich and healthy)(1,2,3). In fact, many plants depend on ants for their survival(3). On the other hand, some ants are the primary plant-eaters in their environments(1,2), and in many cases ants are major predators of small animals(2). Although some ant species can be pests themselves(1,2), some are beneficial to humans by feeding on harmful crop pests(2)—and by serving as subjects for a wide range of scientific studies(2,3).

Ants (Order: Hymenoptera; Family: Formicidae) are highly social insects and are often associated in one way or another with plants. Ants sometimes form mutualistic relationships with plants, which may benefit from ant predation on plant herbivores or seed dispersal by ants. However, there are relatively few examples of pollination by ants. In some cases, ants actually appear to interfere with pollination, sometimes reducing plant reproductive output: they may consume nectar without providing the plant with any reproductive benefit; they are aggressive toward other insects, including pollinators; they can destroy floral tissue; and their secretions may reduce pollen viability. Some plants appear to have evolved means of minimizing ant visitation to their flowers. In one example of ant interference with pollination, the ant, Crematogaster scutellaris, is a major predator of the fig wasp, which forms an obligate pollination mutualism with the Mediterranean fig tree (Genus: Ficus L.)

The School of Ants project is a citizen-scientist driven study of the ants that live in urban areas, particularly around homes and schools. Participation is open to anyone interested in contributing.