Fun stuff about Ants

Most people think of ants as a disturbance but in reality they are quite fascinating insects. They're known to be extremely hard workers and they've expanded colonies under ground. Each ant is assigned with a particular job and they execute it pretty well. These fun facts about ants will sure change your view about them.

According to research it is shown that ants build different types of bases. A lot of ants build primary small mounds out of dirt or sand. Like most insects, ants too have their body divided into 3 parts, head, thorax, and abdomen. Ants accumulate nectar and usually can carry more than they require for themselves and this excess amount is shared with other members of the colony once they go back to the nest. This sharing is executed in an interesting way. While one ant passes a drop of liquid from its crop into its mouth and a 2d ant gathers it in its mouth. This is known as 'trophallaxis' and appears to us as though two ants kissing, though it is as significant to the ants as kissing is to humans, if not more so.

More than 12,000 different species of ants are found in different places all across the Earth. Some of them tend not to be harmful at all. Other species of ants including the fire ants are larger and they do sting. This sting may cause the skin to burn and to become reddish and inflamed.

The ants feed upon a sugary aphid elimination called honeydew and, accordingly, protect it from predators. Ants are well-known social insects that live in well-organized colonies. Just about all of the ants in a colony are the wingless sterile females, called workers, generally viewed on or around an ant hill. Ants conduct complicated social structures, constructing projects, and communications. It is a common behaviour of several animals to depend on leaders. In case of ants, they drop pheromones as they hunt for nutritive foods to take back to the colony. Other ants follow these trails and converge on those where pheromones are the strongest.

Ants are best earthmovers--they move more earth than any other creatures including the earthworms (who are no slumps in the dirt-moving business, as a lot of us may know!). Generally ants mature only in a few days and live a very active, but brief life. The ants experience 4 discrete growing stages, the egg, larva, pupa and the adult. Life scientists classify ants as a special group of wasps.

Ants are little-noticed but important part of the tallgrass prairie fauna. There are 100 species of ants that may be detected in prairie tracts over the entire area, of which around 60 are usually found in prairies. Ants also have a bottleneck between the thorax and abdomen that gives them a "pinched-waist" appearance. The constricted portion of the abdomen is called the pedicel, and the fat, main part of the abdomen is called the gaster. Ants maybe of different color from red to black, and they can also range in size. From one-quarter inch for a worker carpenter ant to three-quarters of an inch for a queen carpenter ant.