5 August: Ants

Today is World Ant Day, so here are ten things you never knew about ants:

1. Some ant related words: They belong to the order Hymenoptera, as do wasps and bees. The family is Formicidae. Myrmecology is the scientific study of ants. Myrmecophobia is the word for an irrational fear of ants. An ant colony is called a formicary.
2. There are a lot of them. There are over 12,000 ant species and there are native species almost everywhere, except for Antarctica, the Arctic, and a handful of islands. It's said there are around 1 million ants for every human on the planet. If you could get a balance scale big enough to hold the entire human population on one side and all the ants on the other, the ants would weigh more.
3. Ants don't have lungs or ears, but they have two stomachs. They breathe by means of spiracles, a series of holes on the sides of their bodies. The spiracles are connected through a network of tubes to distribute the Oxygen around their bodies. They hear using vibrations using an organ located behind their knees. The extra stomach is used to store food to feed other ants in a process known as trophallaxis. This is to increase the efficiency of the colony. Some ants go out to forage while others stay behind to work in the colony, and get fed by the foragers.
4. As well as the foragers a colony will have drones whose job is to feed the Queen and care for eggs and larvae. Other workers keep the nest clean, including removal of dead ants. A species of ant which lives in hollow trees has developed a means of dealing with floods – workers drink the flood water and excrete it outside. There are even ant teachers. Experienced foragers of some species have been observed to act as "mentors" to younger ants who follow them to learn where the food is. Some might even have career choices. Scientists took a generation of worker ants and divided them into two groups. They made sure that one group was always successful finding food and that the other group always failed. The successful group were observed to become full time foragers while the unsuccessful group became specialists in brood care.
5. Aside from humans, ants are the only creatures which farm other animals for food. Just as a human farmer might protect and shelter a herd of dairy cows, ants do the same with other insects. The best known example is probably aphids, which are farmed for the honeydew they produce.
6. Ants in a colony can recognise others from their colony by a scent they secrete which coats their exoskeletons. Ants separated from their colony for a period of time will lose the scent and be attacked as a stranger if reintroduced. Another way ants are like humans – there are species which will raid other nests and steal food or even workers to use as "slaves". So ants don't like strangers. That said, some opportunistic males will occasionally walk into a strange colony and when challenged, produce mating hormones, so they not only survive, but the native workers will pick them up and carry them to the queen for some nookie.
7. Flying ant day is basically an ant orgy. Winged males take off, exuding mating pheromones as they go, and the winged females follow. This happens in summer because it's easier to fly when its warm and humidity means the ground is soft enough for newly mated queens to burrow into the ground and form a new nest. They're not usually flying willy nilly, either, but are likely making for a local landmark such as a tree. When the females arrive the males mount them in the air, although they'll land to actually mate. In some species the females mate with multiple males and store the sperm. A female ant's freedom ends once they've mated and burrowed into the soil to lay eggs. They actually remove their own wings at this point. The first workers to hatch are known as nanitics. They're smaller and weaker than later workers, but they hit the ground running and start building a new nest.
8. As part of their defences, an ant can deliver a bite which is even painful to a human. Fire ants are so called because their bite causes a burning sensation, but that's nothing compared to the bullet ant which lives in the Amazon and is said to have the most painful sting of any insect anywhere. Their sting has been compared to being hit by a bullet, hence the name, and they are used in the initiation ceremonies of some Amazon Indian cultures as a test of endurance. Then there's the trap jaw ant, which can close its jaws at 140mph. Though their bites may hurt like hell they're not fatal. However, there is one ant, the jack jumper ant, which has a fatal sting. An antivenom has been developed for it.
9. In some parts of the world, ants are a tasty snack. In Mexico, India, Burma and Thailand, ant eggs and even the ants themselves are eaten like caviar, which can sell for as much as $40 a pound, or ground up as a paste to be served as a condiment with curry.
10. An ant can carry between 10 and 50 times its own body weight. It varies according to species. The Asian weaver ant, for example, can lift 100 times its own weight. They can do it because they are so small; their muscles have a greater cross-sectional area relative to their body size. This means they can produce more force.

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