Nooks and crannies. Semantic enigmas. The body beautiful. Red tape, white lies. Speculative science. This sceptred isle. Root of all evil. Ethical conundrums. This sporting life. Stage and screen. Birds and the bees. In the segment of the head , you will find two compound eyes at the sides of the head. These consist of hundreds of lenses that work together to form a single image in the brain.
Some ants also have three simple eyes in the middle of their head. These are called ocelli and consist of a lot of ommatidia eye facets that distinguish between light and dark. Are they intelligent? With their antennae, ants can detect pheromones which help them to differentiate between friends and enemies. They also use their antennae to communicate by touch. The antennae of an ant are bent in the middle like a human elbow, which is unique to ants as opposed to other insects!
Their strong mandibles are used for the biting, cutting, and carrying of food. Since ants do not have grasping forelegs, it is their mandibles that would form the equivalent to human hands. The eyes and mandibles of an ant are evolved perfectly to fit the lifestyle of an ant and can give vital clues as to how their life looks like — whether they maybe live underground where they do not need to see, what they eat, and other questions.
Ants in the subfamily of Formicidae have an acidopore that emits acid when threatened. This pore is also found in the gaster. The spiracles mentioned above, too. Are they similar to us?? According to Dr Himler, an advantage of this is the reduction in energy exerted when reproducing males, and doubling the chances of procreative females in the caste.
You may be thinking "what?! Just like we raise cows, sheep, pigs, chicken and fish in order to obtain a food source, ants will do the same with other insects. The most common occurrence of this is with aphids. They will protect aphids from predators, and shelter them in their nests from heavy rain showers in order to gain a continuous supply of honeydew.
That's right; these fascinating creatures have two stomachs, and it's not because they're greedy. One of their stomachs is for holding food for their own consumption, whilst the second one is to hold food to be shared with others in the colony. This process is known as trophallaxis and allows a colony to work tremendously efficiently. It allows for the ants that forage for foodstuff to feed those that stay behind and tend to the responsibilities of the colony.
Depending on the species, some ants are able to swim. They haven't yet mastered the butterfly, but they can survive in water by using their own version of the doggy paddle, and can also float for long periods of time. To put it simply, ants are incredible survivors. Not only can they hold their breath underwater for long time periods, but they will also build lifeboats to survive floods! See how they do it in the video below:.
This may sound strange, but hear me out. Some species, such as the Polyergus Lucidus are known as slave-making ants. They invade neighbouring ant colonies, seizing its inhabitants and forcing them to work. This practice is known as "slave raiding". Slave-making ants parasite a single species or a group of related species which are often close relatives to them.
Those captured will work as if they were in their own colony, while the slave-making workers will only focus on replenishing their workforce. There are two types of slave-making ants: permanent social parasites and facultative slave-makers. Permanent social parasites rely on the enslaved ants throughout their lifetime whilst facultative slave-makers do not. A study from Harvard and Florida State Universities discovered that ants first rose during the Cretaceous period around million years ago!
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