Such ants in an anthill. The amazing life of ants Ants their way of life

Like a hive, an anthill is a complex social structure. The life of ants in nature is so organized and subject to the demands of the community that it is difficult to believe that insects lack intelligence. But an individual individual most definitely has only instincts. The version of collective intelligence has so far only appeared in science fiction novels. But even in the absence of reasonable actions, a community is able to build its own social ladder with its own “elevator”.

What is an anthill from the point of view of social structure

It is difficult to answer whether it is a privileged individual, since without it the life of an anthill loses its meaning. Worker ants cannot reproduce, but they are the ones who decide when to kill the queen who has reduced her reproductive rate. The more queens there are ant family, the less “respectful” the working individuals are to them. If we draw an analogy with human society, a comparison with a palace coup suggests itself.

Interesting!

A record life expectancy in laboratory conditions was recorded in the queen of the ant species (Lasius niger). She lived for 28 years.

Queens are long-lived. The average lifespan is 12 -20 years. Young queens, which they gnaw off after fertilization. Sometimes some of the queens remain in the anthill, duplicating the old queens. The other part, after the mating summer, finds a convenient place and prepares a new anthill.

Queens' resources are very limited. She may lay a small number of eggs the first time and often feeds the hatched larvae with eggs specially designed for this purpose. Because of this, in a new place in an anthill, several ants of the first generation are always very small, sometimes dwarf. Working insects begin to provide their anthill with food, and subsequent generations become larger and larger until they reach a normal size for the species.

Males

Coming out of hibernation, the queen makes the first clutch, from which new males and females emerge. Males also have wings. Their life is short. Afterwards, the males die, since parasites are not needed in the anthill.

Having fulfilled her duty to procreate, the queen begins to lay eggs, from which infertile females emerge - worker ants. Social structure anthill provides for the division of worker ants into more specialized subclasses:

• Nannies. The youngest ants. Busy caring for eggs and larvae.
• Breadwinners. Ants courting the queen.
• Shepherds. In those species that, special ants look after the “ladies”.
• Honeydew collectors. Insects that collect the sweet secretions of aphids.
• Mushroom growers. A specific class of leaf-cutter ants.
• Workers on the anthill. They are engaged in repairing the home, maintaining the necessary humidity in it and ventilating the anthill.
• Foragers. One of last stages insect life. They provide an anthill by collecting it everywhere. The lives of foragers are of little value. Among them the most large percentage death. The functions of foragers are performed by the oldest members of the anthill.
• Soldiers. The largest members of the ant family. They act as protectors of the anthill.

Throughout the life of an ant, the functions performed by the same individual change. For this reason, it is impossible to speak with confidence about the caste structure of the ant community.

Soldiers

A relatively privileged “class”, not excommunicated from the anthill, but essentially being very large and, most likely, the oldest representatives of the working class.

Lifespan of infertile females

When determining the bulk of insects in an ant community, one must take into account not so much calendar time as how ants live in each climate zone. And it’s better to count in months.

The lifespan of a non-hibernating insect in the tropical jungle is 1 year or 12 months. The lifespan of an ant near the polar zone is 3–4 years. But the latter are active only 3 months a year. The insects spend the remaining 9 months in suspended animation, in which the vital activity of their body slows down almost to zero. As a result, the life expectancy of a circumpolar ant is the same 12 months as that of a tropical ant.

Ants, as the most common type of insect, live in almost every corner globe, excluding Antarctica and Greenland, as well as individual oceanic islands. They conquered not only forests and steppes, but also deserts, and even the permafrost zone. There are 13,500 species of these insects found in nature, of which 300 species live in Russia. Ants cannot live alone, so they always live in families.

How many years does an ant live?

The life span of ants depends on what species and what caste it belongs to. From birth, the caste of the insect is determined and it does not change throughout its life. Worker ants, queens and males live in one family.

However, not all species of these insects exhibit a strict division into castes. Individuals of black garden and pharaoh ants can change their “specialization” throughout their lives. A newborn ant can care for larvae and eggs, later set up a home, and at the end of its life, obtain food.

In addition, the length of an insect's life cycle is affected by its size. It has been noticed that the larger the ant, the more likely it is to live a longer life. The conditions of its life also play a significant role in determining how long an ant will live.

How long do different types of ants live?

Ants different types differ significantly in the length of their residence, the duration of which is determined by several factors.

This insect is called the orderly of mixed forests, since the inhabitants of a large anthill are able to clear an entire hectare of forest from various pests. Ants collect thousands of pupae of harmful insects throughout the day, which are then used to feed ant larvae.

Genetically, the lifespan of the red forest ant is limited to 5 years, but in practice they die much earlier than the period measured by nature. Most often they become prey for birds. The males, after completing their main function die within a month. The queen can be long-lived if she constantly remains in the anthill.

This type of ant prefers to make its home in meadows and forest edges. During the season, winged females leave the anthill twice for the purpose of fertilization. The lifespan of meadow and forest ants is the same.

Ants that rarely leave the anthill have a longer life span than those that are forced to often go outside. The main cause of mortality of worker ants is attacks by predators, as well as high injury rates.

The pharaoh ant, brought from hot habitats, settles and lives in people's houses. In an apartment, these insects do not build an anthill, but choose separate niches and cavities for their habitat. If pharaoh ants settle in apartment building, then the number of their colony can reach several thousand individuals, and they will all belong to one family.

These insects have the shortest life cycle. Females usually live no more than 9 months, breeding males have about 20 days, and working individuals no more than 2 months. Despite the short period of existence, insects are capable of reproducing at least 30,000 individuals during this period, which occurs due to the presence large quantity queens in the nest.

These ants make their nests in the ground and sometimes in people's houses.

The lifespan of a black garden ant is genetically determined by 3 years, but in reality, within a year, the insect colony is renewed.

Tropical ants can be called long-lived; in bulldog ants, the queen lives not 12 or 6 years, but about 20-22 years; working individuals live up to 5 years.

How do ants live?

The life of an anthill is organized and strictly regulated. Each family member is assigned a specific role. For some insects, the main task is to feed the young and the queen, while others look for food and repair their homes.

As entomologists note, the average life cycle is:

1. Worker ants live from 1 to 3 years. Moreover, the lifespan of large individuals is longer than that of small ones, and ants - inhabitants of cold regions live less than their counterparts in the tropics
2. In males life cycle limited to a few weeks. Their life goal is to participate in mating, and then they are destroyed by the ants of their anthill or become prey to predators. Selected species they leave the males alive, but only if there are several queens in the anthill.
3. The queen can live for about 20 years, which is 10-15 times longer than the lifespan of an ordinary worker ant. During this time, she is capable of producing offspring numbering from 500,000.

Life of ants

IN myrmecology- The science of ants has collected a huge amount of material that describes the features of the life of an anthill. It is believed that ants are intelligent animals, but what a tiny size their nervous system is. An anthill is an object, like a complex and quite skillful organism that quite effectively uses the limited funds invested in it.This “organism” adapts not only to seasonal changes environment, but also to accidental damage. There is a lot of work in an anthill - so the ants work all day long. It has been established that the queen lives up to 20 years, while the worker ant lives up to 3 years! Workers obtain food in quantities that are tens of times greater than their own needs. Others are engaged in collecting building material to build a nest; a special group of ants are carriers who carry larvae, young workers and females. The consistency of actions of those participating in a common cause is a necessary condition success. Ants are insects that are skilled in animal husbandry. In order to have food reserves in the anthill, they raise aphids. Aphids secrete a special liquid - honeydew, which is a source of food. Some are like ants “milking” aphids, while others carry this substance in their mouths and feed others. In order for aphids to feel normal, the ants take care of them, and for the winter the females are transferred to an anthill to be kept warm. jpg" alt="1350662091_muravi.tajnaja-sila-prirody.2005.hdtv_shot_00014" width="660" height="368" />!}

Ants feed on a variety of grass seeds. Insects collect them and transport them to the anthill. Before use, they are ground into flour, then mixed with saliva and this dough is fed to the larvae. In addition, ants can dry and ventilate the seeds so that they do not spoil. They can also make traps. The ants “cut” the leaves of the plant into long thin threads and make something like a cocoon. In this cocoon they make numerous holes and place themselves in it so that they put their heads into these holes and wait for food, even much more, for themselves. As soon as some prey that crawls nearby lands on the cocoon, the ants grab it by the legs, organs, and antennae and wait for help to drag the prey to the anthill. But before that, they sting the victim to paralyze, and then dismember and drag for storage. When the sun warms up, the ants crawl to the surface and “take sunbathing" When their body temperature rises, the ants quickly return inside, give off heat, and return back to warm up. Thousands of ants quickly raise the temperature in the anthill. Scientists believe that ants are fairly fast insects and it is difficult to find logic in their actions. A typical example for ants there is an unexpected sharp change in the direction of movement, sometimes the ant suddenly stops and turns back or at a certain angle to the direction of movement. It seems that the ant stops when a certain signal arrives, the animal listens to it for a second, and then moves to where it was indicated..jpg" >

Ants can pull various loads alone or in groups, but it is very difficult to trace the end result, because they often move from one job to another. If you look at human society or just one family from above, you can see the same “coordinated” chaos: everyone goes somewhere, runs, does something, and the result is the same - public life. Numerous entomological researchers have always believed that there is a “brain center” in the anthill. But today, research proves that there is no management of the anthill; each type of activity does what is given to it by nature. Each individual is capable of performing its own “micro-operations” on an instinctive level. And these are the elements that make up the working life of an anthill. What about the thinking of ants? According to physiologists nervous system These insects have only 500 thousand neurons. Each ant is capable of performing only its own specific function; they are carriers of certain program segments. When these segments are combined, a single life system of the anthill is formed. That is, the anthill is controlled by a distributed brain.

The ant belongs to the class insects, phylum arthropods, order Hymenoptera, family ants (Formicidae). According to their organization, ants belong to the group of social insects with a clear division into three castes: workers, females and males.

• Blood Red Ant (Slave Master)(Formica sanguinea)

widespread in Europe, middle lane Russia, found in China and Mongolia. Working individuals are up to 8 mm long and have a black body with an orange head. The queen ant grows up to 10 mm and is distinguished by a red head and orange color chest. Ants make summer nests in half-rotten stumps, in the ground and under stones, in winter time the family moves to another nest located at the base of the trees. The typical way of life of this type of ant is predatory raids on the anthills of brown forest, quick and other ants. Captured pupae are brought to the nest and raised as "slaves".

• Yellow Amazon Ant ( Polyergus rufescens)

a species of ants distinguished by its rather large size: females reach almost a centimeter in length, males are somewhat more modest in size - 6-7.5 mm, “soldiers” are even smaller and rarely grow more than 5-7 mm. Females and “soldiers” are colored yellow-reddish, the body is usually covered with black hairs. Male ants are black, with brown limbs and antennae. The species lives in European countries, in the western regions of Asia, in western Siberia. The Amazon ant prefers to settle in damp forests, choosing clearings and forest edges to build an anthill. Amazons lead a slave-owning lifestyle, abduct other ants in the pupal stage, and then use them as slaves and labor.

• Legionnaire ants or nomad ants (dorilins, wandering ants) ( Dorylinae)

a subfamily of nomadic ants that live exclusively in the tropics and subtropical zone. Legionnaire ants are especially common in Central and South America, found in Africa. They live in huge colonies, the main part of which are working individuals. Nomadic ants destroy everything in their path that is suitable for food. Despite the average size of 2-4 mm, this type of ant “takes over” with its numbers, destroying crops during invasions cultivated plants and feeding on their juices.

Where do ants live?

These insects can be observed on all continents, in all natural areas and climatic zones. They are absent only in the harsh climate of the Arctic and Antarctica, on the cold islands of Greenland and Iceland, as well as in sultry deserts. In areas with temperate and cold climates, ants hibernate in winter.

Basically, these insects build anthills for themselves in rotten or rotten wood, in the soil and under small stones. Some species of ants invade other people's nests or live near humans.

The food of ants is varied and depends on the species. The diet of most species consists of plant and animal foods, and each individual eats several times a day.

The source of protein necessary for the growth and development of ant larvae in nature are dead insects, animal remains, trophic eggs laid by the queen when there is an excess of food, eggs of pests and semi-digested food of adult ants. House ant larvae feed on dairy products, gelatin and leftover egg dishes. The diet of the ant queen also consists of protein food, which is specially chewed by the ants caring for her.

The basis of the carbohydrate menu of most ants is honeydew (sugar-containing leaf juices secreted during temperature changes) and honeydew - the sweet secretions of insects, especially aphids.

Dairy farmer ants raise aphids for themselves, graze them, nurse them, and protect their offspring from other ants. These shepherds milk their pets and feed on their milk.

Additional components of ants' food in nature can be seeds and roots of plants, nuts, and tree sap.

Some ants grow colonies of fungi in anthills as food, and also feed on insects.

Reaper ants consume dry plant seeds, dry fruits and grain crops. They are able to store 1 kg of raw materials, which makes it possible to feed an entire colony of ants in winter. Leaf-cutter ants bring pieces of leaves to the anthill, chew them and store them in a kind of greenhouse chambers. Over time, mushrooms grow from these pieces in the storage, which are the main food for these gourmet ants.

Centromyrmex ants feed exclusively on termites. The Dracula ant drinks the juices secreted by its own larvae, and feeds the larvae different insects. House ants are omnivores.

In winter, when it gets significantly colder, the ants hibernate, during which they starve.

Most species, however, lead an active lifestyle in winter in a sealed anthill, feeding on abundant supplies.

The life of ants in nature is a unique phenomenon that never ceases to amaze people. There are about 10 thousand species of these insects in the world. The total mass of all ants is equal to the weight of all people on the planet. The queen of the family lives about 25 years, the working individual lives from 3 to 5 years.

An amazing architectural structure with many chambers, passages, floors, exits and entrances. The height reaches several meters, the diameter is about 5 m, with the size of one ant up to 8 mm. Millions of individuals live in one house. The entire colony numbers several million insects.

Outside there is a mound of earth with twigs, sticks, leaves, needles, etc. building material that he can handle. The cone-shaped shape of the anthill warms up well in the sun, ensures free air circulation, and protects from raindrops.

Inside, everything is much more complicated. The structure of an anthill resembles multi-story building with a huge number of apartments. Divided into 2 parts. The upper one is intended for life in the warm season, the lower one goes deep into the ground, providing a safe, prosperous wintering. Each of them has chambers resembling separate rooms:

• Queen's apartments;
• egg chamber;
• room for larvae;
• food pantry;
• warehouse for waste and garbage;
• tomb;
• room with aphids;
• bedrooms for wintering.

The chambers are connected to each other by numerous passages. The entrances are guarded and tightly closed for the winter.

Ant families are constantly replenished, and housing needs to be expanded. Construction continues every year. In case of danger - if the anthill is damaged or destroyed, residents immediately begin constructing a new building, dragging food supplies, larvae, and eggs there.

Interesting!

The largest anthill in size was discovered in the Tomsk region. The height is 3 m, the diameter is 5 m. It took approximately 25 years to build. Nearby, members of this family are building new housing, identical in appearance.

Relationships within

The life of ants in an anthill is strictly regulated by local laws.

• At the head of the hierarchy is the queen. Her responsibilities include. Every week the female lays eggs, the workers drag them into special chambers, provide favorable conditions development. The queen lives up to 25 years.
• A small proportion of the ant community are young males. Their fate is sealed. After fertilization, females die within 2 weeks.
• The main part of society are working individuals. The caste is formed by females who are incapable of fertilization. depends on the species and living conditions.

Interesting!

The eggs hatch into female and male larvae. Which of them will be who in the future depends on nutrition and diet. Ants independently regulate the number of female queens and workers, providing different conditions larvae.

Ant castes do not change, but in at a young age individuals are given the opportunity to test themselves in any field. The lowest caste is the builders. This includes those ants that were unable to prove themselves in another area. In addition to this profession, there are many others in the ant family:

• scouts;
• security guards;
• military - invaders;
• food getters;
• nannies;
• storekeepers;
• milkers or shepherds;
• midwives;
• nurses;
• transporters.

In the life of ants, powers and responsibilities are clearly divided. Periodically you have to confirm your status. The ants start fighting among themselves, demonstrating their superiority.

Interesting!

In the life of an ant, there is a constant process of learning and information transfer. Insects are capable teachers and students. Adults pass on their experience to young ones, showing how to act. If an adult ant finds food, it guides the young student along the same trajectory so that he can find the prey himself. The same interaction is observed in any area of ​​ant life.

Wintering

Interesting too. From mid-summer they make food reserves for the winter. With the first frost, all entrances are tightly closed. As temperatures decrease, they move to bottom part anthill


If the winter is not so severe, life inside does not stop. Everything goes on as usual, only the female’s fertility decreases. Insects even have the ability to go outside in search of food. During severe frosts, ants move to bedrooms. Their metabolism slows down, the need for nutrition disappears, and the insect stops moving. People characterize this state as deep sleep.

Life in the anthill becomes more active with the onset of warm weather. The soil warms up, the ants gradually move to the upper floors and open the entrances.

Benefits for nature

In an anthill, several ants act as scouts. They crawl around in search of food, inspect the territory for enemies and danger. for other insects, birds, some animals. You always need to be on your guard.

Ants bring a huge benefit to nature. They are called forest orderlies. The production of 1 large anthill per day is about 7,000 caterpillars, 28,000 pupae, 3,000 oak leaf roller butterflies, 4,000 pine cutworms. Behind summer time worker ants bring up to 60 thousand plant seeds, 19 buckets of juice, and 7 million insects to the anthill. Most of these reserves are spent on feeding the larvae.

Small creatures improve soil quality. They fight plant pests and loosen layers. Aphids are used as "pets". They feed it with leaves and collect a sweet substance that the insect secretes on its body.

In our area, ants help many plants grow. They sow plantain, violet, snowdrops, celandine, etc.

On a note!

Humanity appreciated useful composition ant poison. Substance used for preparation medical supplies. Used to treat the circulatory system, joints, and musculoskeletal system. The venom contains a huge amount of antibiotics that destroy pathogenic microorganisms.

The life of ants in nature is interesting, attractive, amazing. However, there are families that harm agricultural crops and build nests in human habitation. In this case, the most sophisticated methods are used to either expel pests into the natural environment