Though ants may seem boring at first glance, they’re actually highly intriguing creatures with many remarkable features that make them one of the world’s most essential species.
One species of ant is exclusively female, while winged males mate with its queen via winged males that fly into its territory to mate with her. Other interesting facts about an ant include spines on its thorax and pheromone trails.
They are the largest insects in the world
At one time or another, almost everyone has seen an ant crawl across a picnic blanket or eating cookies. Although they appear small and innocuous, their size is truly astonishing: Ants can lift ten times their own bodyweight! That means that a second grader with similar strength could pick up an entire car! Ants achieve this incredible feat because their muscles make up such a high proportion of their mass; in addition, their bodies are segmented so the head and thorax attach directly to the abdomen through narrow waist sections while their vital organs reside within.
Most ants possess large heads with compound eyes and elbowed antennae, as well as powerful jaws used for carrying, digging and chewing; both pairs serve a different function – outer pair carrying/digging duties while inner pair chewing duties are performed concurrently; they eat both meat and leaves, like most insects do. Furthermore, most species of ants possess six legs.
Ants’ bodies are protected by a hard shell known as an exoskeleton. When they molt, this old shell sheds and they develop into adults; this process usually takes 10 days and produces a new queen; male ants mate with her shortly thereafter and die shortly after mating; while females feed off eggs and milk from other colonists to raise their offspring before spending their time searching for food and defending their colonies.
Ants have over 10,000 species. While most are red or black in color, some also come in green, pink, orange and white hues. Ants are social creatures who form colonies that can include thousands of individuals living together. Pheromones secreted from each ant act like scents to warn their neighbors when danger threatens.
Scientists have observed ants working together to transport objects or run away from predators. Saharan silver ants, the fastest of all ants, can travel 85 centimetres per second – faster than both humans and horses!
Ants have the unique ability to detect magnetic fields associated with Earth, enabling them to navigate long distances using “magnetoreception.” Other animals, including fish, migratory birds and bats use this ability as well.
They can swim
Many people assume ants cannot swim, yet this is not accurate. Some species, such as fire ants, can float on water while most don’t excel as swimmers – their bodies actually repel it and their legs don’t support forward motion necessary for swimming. Nonetheless, ants do have the capability of propelling themselves forward through water using their hind legs held straight back like rudders; this enables them to navigate mangrove swamps and other shallow aquatic habitats with ease.
Humans are decimating forests at an alarming rate, making ant survival ever-more important in this globalized era. If ants fall from treetops into the water, they could drown or be preyed upon by aquatic predators; but if they can swim they might have a better chance at reaching shore and rejoining their colonies. A study published last week in Experimental Biology discovered that certain ant species such as carpenter and silky field ants can swim well and even move faster than other ant species in aquatic environments.
Researchers conducted tests on 35 common tropical ant species by placing them into water and watching how they behaved. Ten were capable of moving through water with coordinated movements; three body lengths per second is more than double their floatation speeds. This indicates that swimming may have independently evolved in multiple species throughout their genealogie tree.
Researchers found that the ants studied could also detect scent trails in water, which was evidence of their social behavior and crucial for foraging and navigation skills. Furthermore, some ants may have greater likelihood of swimming due to being better adapted to their local environments.
Ants are hardworking, intelligent creatures that play many vital ecological roles. Some ants such as fire ants protect their colony with toxic venom while others survive floods by clumping together and floating on top of water surfaces. Newly discovered Pheidole drogon species have spines on their exoskeletons to deter predators; yet these small insects can lift 10-50 times their own weight and transport massive objects without breaking a sweat!
They can lift 10-50 times their body weight
Ants may be small in size but are surprisingly strong for their size, being capable of lifting objects up to 50 times their own weight and impressively carrying these objects back to their colonies. While ants might not be capable of lifting an entire car at one go, they certainly make impressive cargo carriers!
Ants inhabit diverse habitats from caves to deserts, feeding on both plants and animals for sustenance. Though often considered pests, their unique qualities have long fascinated scientists.
Ants’ incredible strength lies partly in their small body’s low surface-area-to-volume ratio, allowing it to use its muscles efficiently. Furthermore, these creatures have incredible energy efficiency; thus enabling them to achieve great feats using only limited energy resources.
These creatures are also fast. For example, trap-jaw ants of Odontomachus genus can snap their jaws faster than any predatory appendage in animal kingdom; their jaws open and close in 130 microseconds! In order to gain more insight into their speed of movement, Ohio State University researchers placed Allegheny mound ants into a centrifuge – it felt similar to being on an upgraded version of a carnival ride for them!
Another fascinating ant fact is that some species’ queen can lay up to 1,000 eggs daily – more than the average human can produce in one year! Furthermore, they lack lungs and can survive underwater for an entire day without problems.
Though small in size, ants are highly social insects and live in large colonies containing up to 300 million members. Ants forage for food by following other ants’ trails of pheromones to food sources while communicating through tactile signals; additionally they use Earth’s magnetic field for navigation similar to birds’ navigation methods when finding new locations.
Ants have evolved to recognize the smell of decaying corpses as food sources, while some ants have learned to detect infected individuals and transport them away from their colonies in search of new food sources. Ants also possess the ability to distinguish the scent of fungi that infects them – something other ants cannot do!
They have a fungus that infects them
Ants may be common sight in our world, but they’re much more complicated than you might realize. These insects can be found across every continent except Antarctica and can adapt to inhabit different habitats including trees, walls and even building voids. Ants also possess great social intelligence – even communicating via pheromones between each other!
Ants may not normally carry human diseases, but they can still become zombie-like when exposed to Ophiocordyceps unilateralis fungus. This parasitic fungus grows from carpenter ant heads and takes control by manipulating their muscles without touching their brain or glands.
Researchers employed advanced genetic techniques and high-resolution scanning methods to sequence O. unilateralis’ genome and compare it with that of other fungal genomes, uncovering that its genome includes various bacteria-like genes including those responsible for producing toxins – potentially explaining ants’ zombie-like behavior.
Ophiocordyceps unilateralis infecting an ant causes it to leave its nest and climb a plant until reaching an appropriate height to die. Once inside its body, Ophiocordyceps unilateralis begins disabling muscle cells while growing around and through them; additionally it triggers atrophy in its mandibles by eliminating essential metabolites needed for cell activity – according to research published in BMC Ecology journal.
Once an ant stops moving, it will use what is known as “death gripping” to bite down on a leaf vein and die. Fungus then grows out of their head to cast its spores onto the ground beneath. These can then be picked up by other foraging ants who come along later.
While this fungus may be lethal to infected ants, it poses no direct threat to humans since its particles cannot enter our bodies. But it’s not the only fungus capable of manipulating animals and insects: The popular video game and television show The Last of Us features another such strain of fungal infection which transforms humans into zombies.