Ants and Humans are very much alike.
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Ants...their combined weight is greater than the combined weight of all humans, ants are the most numerous type of animal.
Ant brains are largest amongst insects. It has been estimated that an ant's brain may have the same processing power as a Macintosh II computer.
BOTH ANTS & HUMANS SHARE THESE ENDEAVORS
LIVESTOCK FARMING
herd aphids & "milk" them for nectar-like food
CULTIVATION
growing underground gardens for food
CHILDCARE
feeding young & providing intensive nursery care
EDUCATION
teaching younger ants the tricks of the trade
CLIMATE CONTROL
maintaining a strict 77o F. for developing ants
CAREER SPECIALIZATION
changing & learning new careers
CIVIC DUTIES
responding with massive group projects
ARMED FORCES
raising an army of specialized soldier ants
SECURITY
warding off other ants, insects, and animals
EARTH MOVERS
move at least as much soil as earthworms
SOCIAL PLANNING
maintain ratio of workers, soldiers, & reproductives
ENGINEERING
tunnel from 2 directions & meet exactly midway
COMMUNICATIONS
complex tactile, chemical communication system
FLOOD CONTROL
incorporate water traps to keep out rain
LIMITED FREE WILL
inter-relationships more symbiotic than coercive
Until 2002, the largest known ant colony was on the Ishikari coast of Hokkaido, Japan. The colony was estimated to comprise of 306 million worker ants and 1 million queen ants living in 45,000 interconnected nests over an area of 2.7 km2.
In 2002, a super-colony of connected nests was found to stretch nearly 6000 km across Europe.
Another, measuring approximately 100 km wide, was found beneath Melbourne, Australia in 2004. -
Macintosh II computer !!!
LOL!! -
Ant troops in fight to the death
Shanghai Star. 2002-09-26
IN some down-to-earth news, more than 1,000 ants were observed fighting a pitched battle at a local military camp, leading to hundreds of deaths, Shanghai Morning Post reported.
On September 22, Sun Xilun, a deputy director of a branch of the Shanghai armed police, led other armed police to a vegetable field near their camp at about 9:00am.
They worked in the field as usual. After about 20 minutes, he suddenly noticed that at least 1,000 black ants, led by an ant general, were approaching a red ant fortress 30 metres away.
When they were about 6 metres away from the red ant colony, about 400 red ants, also under the leadership of a general, climbed out as if in response to an alarm. They waited for several minutes as the black ants advanced towards them. Then the battle began.
Though the black ants were slightly smaller than their opponents, they had the advantage of numbers. Two or three black ants would surround an enemy ant and bite it to death.
The two groups fought each other for about 90 minutes. In the battle, the red leader was slain and most of the red ant troops were slaughtered.
Police said the aim of the black ants had been to steal eggs from the red ant colony.
Black ants can often be seen creeping into a red ant nest to carry off eggs, but it is very unusual to see ants fighting a major battle.
(Star News) -
why would ants steal eggs from the red ants?
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So that when the eggs hatch, the 'captured red ants' that emerge from the eggs think that they belong to the black ants' hive and so serve the colony and its queen.Originally posted by DrTech:why would ants steal eggs from the red ants? -
Hapless ants, like mortals caught in a crossfire between competing gods, are exploited in turn by two other insects—a butterfly and a wasp. When the wasp attacks the larval butterfly, it drives the ants to attack each other, turning them into incidental casualties.
The ants, researchers have discovered, are manipulated by chemicals produced by both sides in the struggle.
The highly sophisticated chemical warfare that has evolved between the Ichneumon eumerus wasp and Maculinea rebeli butterfly in western Europe has resulted in Myrmica schencki ants being used as pawns.
The ants are duped by chemicals into accepting, nurturing, and protecting the butterfly caterpillar as one of their own. But when the wasp detects a caterpillar hiding inside an ant colony, it uses its own clever chemical trickery to sow confusion in the ranks of the ants, allowing it to gain access to the caterpillar.
The intruding wasp, by secreting a cocktail of compounds called pheromones, throws the ants into such a frenzy that they attack and even kill one another. In the chaos, the wasp slips unnoticed through the ant nest and preys on the unguarded caterpillar. -
Interesting.
Btw dugongs and manatees are completely different animals.
Dugongs have a split tail (like whales). Manatees have a paddle-like tail. -
ISHIKARI, Japan (AP) - A man in a tweed blazer and a white sun hat walks
slowly through a patch of sea grass on the coast of northern Japan, searching.
A truck rumbles down the highway toward a cluster of cranes in the distance,
but he doesn't look up. He bends down when he finds what he was looking for,
a small hole in a pile of sand - the entryway to the largest colony of ants
ever found on earth.
For Prof. Seigo Higashi, this is not just an anthill, it's a life's work. For
28 years, he has studied, counted and even lived among the hundreds of
millions of Japanese red wood ants that dwell on this strip of shoreline.
Higashi has observed every facet of their lifecycle, from their eating habits
to their mating rituals. Now 50, he began studying the ant colony as a
graduate student in his early 20s. Today, he is watching their ancient empire
die.
``There used to be a whole lot of these,'' he said, kneeling to pick up one
of the orange-brown bugs between his thumb and forefinger. ``Now, so many
have disappeared.''
In the early 1970s, Higashi was part of a Hokkaido University team that made
a startling discovery.
Studying ants on the coastal grasslands of Japan's northern island of
Hokkaido, they found a cluster of nests linked in a large network, a
supercolony.
At the time of its discovery, the Hokkaido colony included an estimated
45,000 nests and stretched nearly 12.4 miles along the shore of the Japan Sea.
The complex housed an estimated 307 million Japanese red wood ants, including
some 306 million workers and about 1.1 million queens.
The scale was - and still is - unprecedented.
``As a species, this ant isn't rare or particularly unusual,'' said Higashi,
who took the first headcount here in 1971. ``As a supercolony, though, it's
really something.''
There are only two known ant supercolonies in the world. The other, smaller
one is in the Swiss Jura mountains.
A typical ant colony is comprised mostly of one or more egg-laying queens and
infertile females, or workers, who tend the young, expand the nest and defend
the colony. For a short period once a year, the colony produces males and
fertile females. These ants leave the nest in a ``nuptial flight'' to mate
and start new colonies.
Generally, individuals from different nests will fight each other to the
death, even if they're the same kind of ant.
But for reasons scientists don't fully understand, the ants here and in
Switzerland - both of the Formica genus - have been able to build
supercolonies connected by trails or tunnels through which workers can travel
freely.
The Hokkaido supercolony is populated by a relatively common species, the
Japanese red wood ant. It can be found in Japan, Siberia, China, Taiwan and
the Korean Peninsula.
But only in Hokkaido is it known to have constructed a supercolony.
Higashi said he thinks the colony could have been started as long as 1,000
years ago near the mouth of the Ishikari River, about nine miles north of
Sapporo, Hokkaido's largest city. -
An ant colony starts in general with a queen (alate reproductive female) that has just landed from the nuptial flight in which she has been inseminated by one or more males, has lost her wings, and has found a protected place or has excavated a chamber.
In this protected place (the nest, that does not necessarily have to be constructed, but can be a natural chamber under a rock, for instance) the queen starts to lay eggs, from which after a certain period emerge the larvae. The queen may search for food outside the nest or regurgitate her liquefied wing musculature (she will never fly again). In this initial period the queen is responsible for all colony tasks, not only feeding the larvae and herself, but also for the maintenance of the nest and for colony defense. The larval phase is when the ants grow, so they have to be constantly fed.
The colony passes through a growing phase, not only in population but also in nest size and the area over which the workers forage for food.
The colony growing phase may last several years and the colony may end up with millions of individuals living together at a certain time.
After the colony growing period, which varies among species, but in general may take some years, the colony produces its first generation of sexuals, that is alate female and males.
The colony passes through a growing phase, not only in population but also in nest size and the area over which the workers forage for food. -
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ndmxiaomayi the human ant
