Ants undergo complete metamorphosis—from egg, to larva, to pupa, to adult. Each ant colony begins with, and centers on, the queen, whose sole purpose is to reproduce. Although the queen may copulate with several males during her brief mating period, she never mates again. She stores sperm in an internal pouch, the spermatheca, near the tip of her abdomen, where sperm remain immobile until she opens a valve that allows them to enter her reproductive tract to fertilize the eggs. The queen controls the sex of her offspring.
Fertilized eggs produce females either wingless workers seldom capable of reproduction, or reproductive virgin queens. Unfertilized eggs develop into winged males who do no work, and exist solely to fertilize a virgin queen. The queen produces myriads of workers by secreting a chemical that retards wing growth and ovary development in the female larvae.
Virgin queens are produced only when there are sufficient workers to allow for the expansion of the colony. Queens live long lives in comparison with their workers and are prolific breeders.
They are female, but they cannot reproduce. They do all the work in the nest and protect it from enemies. Some ant species have different sizes of workers for different jobs: large ones with big jaws hunt or protect the nest, while smaller ones work inside, tending the young and digging.
Inside the nest is the queen, she is a large female, and is the only one who can lay eggs. Some ant species have several queens in a nest, some have only one. At certain times in the summer there will be new queens and males in the nest as well. They have wings, and fly out to mate and start new nests. Males are usually smaller than females. Only males and queen ants have wings, but the queens remove their wings when they start a new nest.
Worker ants never have wings. Ants are very important insects all around the world, especially in tropical regions. There are over 11, species in the world, and at least 90 species in Michigan. Ants are found just about every habitat on land except the very coldest.
All ant species need sheltered places to nest and take care of their offspring. Most species nest underground, but some nest in trees.
Some very small ant species can make nests inside acorns and other small hiding places. Adult ants can live in drier conditions than many other invertebrates, but ant eggs and young need humid conditions to survive. Ants have complete metamorphosis. Queen ants lay eggs. The baby ant that hatches from the egg is a larva, with no legs, just a soft white body like a worm and a small head. The larvae are fed by the queen in the first generation and then by workers.
The amount and kind of food an ant larva gets helps determine how big it will be as an adult, and whether it will be a worker or a queen. Each larva grows and molts, and eventually spins a small cocoon of silk, and inside the cocoon it transforms into a pupa.
The pupa is a resting stage, it doesn't move or eat, but just completes the transformation into an adult ant. The new adult emerges from cocoon to join start working for the nest. Ants live in colonies where one or a few females, called queens, lay all the eggs.
Most of the queens' offspring become worker ants that do not reproduce. A few are males, and some become new queens. Each queen ant can lay thousands of eggs per year.
When a new queen finds a good place for a nest, she builds a small chamber and lays some eggs. When the eggs hatch, she finds food, and feeds and takes care of them until they mature. They become workers, and they take over all the work in the nest.
The queen does nothing but lay eggs. Queen ants can live for several years. Workers may live for a year but many only live for a few months.
Males die as soon as they mate, so they only live for a few weeks. Sometimes a nest has several queens, and they can keep a large colony going for many years.
Budding occurs when one or more fertile queens and a group of workers leave an established nest and move to a new nest site. The respective roles of queen and workers remain the same in the budded colony since the workers assist in the establishment and care of the new, budded colony.
Pharaoh ants, some fire ants, ghost ants and Argentine ants, some of the most difficult ant species to control, spread by budding. Interestingly, Pharaoh ant workers by themselves can form a successful budded colony by developing and caring for the queens that are produced from the ant brood they brought along with them.
Could these be a type of termite, and if so, what is the best way to kill them? Since my initial Orkin service one week ago, my ant problem has gotten worse. The ants are in the kitchen now, where initially they were not. What can be done to keep the ants at bay while waiting for extra service? Our home seller says that ants can build tubes into the house.
Is this true, or should we be very concerned about them being termites? Call Residential Commercial. Abundant Insects Ants are one of the most abundant insects on our planet and the reasons are their eusocial, complex societal behaviors and their ability to survive in many and various ecosystems. Acrobat Ant. Carpenter Ant. Carpenter Ant Building Mound. Resources Ants Home Protection.
There are bugs that look like ants in my house. Q Could these be a type of termite, and if so, what is the best way to kill them?
Ant problem has gotten worse.
0コメント