Brief summary about ants. Ant. Where do ants live

Okorokov Anatoly

There is hardly a person who has not stopped at least once near an anthill, fascinated by such a distant and at the same time inexplicably close to us world of these amazing insects. I decided to learn everything about ants and set a goal for myself: to study the structural features of ants to study the structure of the nest to study professions to study feeding habits to study how ants communicate

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MOU – May Secondary School

named after Evgeniy Leonidovich Chistyakov

All about ants

Head: Illarionova

Larisa Ivanovna, teacher

Primary classes

1. Introduction

2. Structural features of ants

3. Nest structure

4 Professions of ants

5. Ant food

6. Ant communication

7. Conclusion.

Introduction

Ants are one of the most common insects on our Earth. They are found in all natural areas, often live close to home.

In nature, ants cannot be confused with other insects: they are wingless, very active, always looking for something, scurrying around. You rarely see a single ant, even far from its nest; usually there are always many of them.

Scientists view the community of ants as a kind of “superorganism” in which not a single part can live without all the others. An ant placed in a jar quickly dies, even if it has everything for a comfortable existence. He is just a particle, torn out of the whole, and is now doomed to death.

There are about 12,000 species of ants on Earth.

Rationale for the chosen topic

There is hardly a person who has not stopped at least once near an anthill, fascinated by such a distant and at the same time inexplicably close to us world of these amazing insects.

I decided to learn everything about ants and set myself a goal:

1. study the structural features of ants
2. study the structure of the nest
3. explore professions
4. study nutritional features
5. study how ants communicate

To achieve the goal, I identified the following task:

1. Study the literature on this issue

Features of the structure of ants.

Ants belong to the phylum Arthropods, the class Insecta, the order Hymenoptera, and the family Ants. The body is segmented and consists of a head, thorax and abdomen.

Ants have a large head. On the head are a pair of antennae and a pair of compound eyes. Simple eyes, or ocelli, are most often three points on the crown of the head. Complex compound eyes are located on the sides of the head. The number of facets is not the same, in some species there are about a dozen, in others, which have good vision, there are more than a thousand. Antennae - antennae - are sensory organs. They serve the ant to perceive olfactory, tactile and partly taste sensations. The main organ of taste is located in the ant's mouth.

The ant's mouth is not adapted to absorb solid food, but is adapted only to absorb nutrient solutions. In addition to the upper and lower lips, there are two pairs of jaws. The upper pair are mandibles, without which ants cannot live. Ants use them as warriors, as nannies, as builders, and as foragers. In the lower lip, the most important part is considered to be the uvula - the organ of taste and body cleansing, as well as the main instrument for feeding the young and the mutual nutrition of the adult inhabitants of the anthill.

There are three pairs of jointed limbs on the chest. In males and young females, the chest is much more developed than in workers, and bears four wings. The membranous wings of male and female ants are transparent. The wings of the front pair are noticeably larger - longer and wider than the rear ones.

The abdomen is segmented, the first or first two segments are less developed and form a stalk. The stalk, connecting the abdomen with the chest, makes the ant body very flexible. The abdomen, consisting of movably connected dorsal and abdominal half-rings, is capable of increasing in volume. The thing is that in the abdomen there is a goiter - an organ that serves to store and transport food. The abdomen contains poisonous glands associated with the sting. The abdomen of males and females is noticeably larger; the reproductive organs are located here. The outside of the body of ants has a cover consisting of chitin. The chitinous cover is very durable. It protects the ant from mechanical and chemical influences external environment. Ants' defenses include sharp mandibles, poisonous liquid and, in some species, a sting.

Nest structure

The nest of red forest ants consists of aboveground and underground parts. Aboveground part in coniferous forests it is constructed from needles, in deciduous forests - from sticks and other small but durable plant particles. From above the ants form cover layer domes that protect the anthill from getting wet during rains.

The dome, flooded with rain, remains strong. Water, as a rule, does not penetrate deep into the nest. After rain, the entire structure acquires a new margin of strength in the sun, since the pieces of building material seem to be soldered together.

Inside the ant heap, the plant material is larger - the sticks can have different sizes, some reach a length of 10cm and a thickness of 5mm. Here from these building materials a system of passages and chambers is constructed in which the young are raised. The dome of the anthill is surrounded by an earthen rampart.

An anthill does not end in an anthill. It has thousands of passages underground. These passages can go to a depth of 1-2 m and end in wide cavities. Some are used as a dumping ground, in others young people develop, and still others serve as wintering grounds for ants. The temperature in such cavities - wintering quarters - does not drop below +5 degrees in winter. And when the frosts are raging above, the ants are not afraid and not cold in their house.

Clearly visible paths branch off from large anthills, along which a stream of ants moves from the nest and to the nest. The feeding trails of red wood ants remain constant, as a result, each anthill has its own feeding area.

Professions of ants

The family is the main form of existence of social insects. Consists of reproductive (females, males) and functionally asexual individuals (workers).

Female queens are larger than worker ants; they never leave the nest. Their main function is laying eggs.

The first batch of juveniles turns only into winged males and females, who live in the anthill for a short time, only 2-3 weeks, and then fly out together, mate and found new nests. After swarming, the male ants die. Of all subsequent clutches, only working individuals appear in the anthill.

Worker ants are wingless, underdeveloped females that are not capable of reproduction. Working ants have a reddish-brown head and chest, and a blackish, shiny abdomen. Body length from 4 to 9 mm. It is the worker ants that we see on the anthill in huge numbers.

There is a division of labor between worker ants.

Newly emerged worker ants are nannies, caring for the larvae and feeding the queens.

Older worker ants perform a variety of tasks: they cut up the prey they brought, remove garbage, and build a nest. They then become foragers. Among the foragers, some specialize in hunting, others in obtaining sweet food, and still others carry material to build a nest. The largest worker ants protect the anthill - these are soldiers.

In red wood ants, each forager begins its non-nesting activity on the periphery of the protected territory. Subsequently, he gradually moves to individual search areas closer and closer to the nest, and ends this path on the dome, where the ant serves as an observer.

A family of our ordinary red forest ants at favorable conditions can exist 90 - 100 years. During this time, the family is repeatedly replaced by females who live a maximum of 15–20 years (this is a record among invertebrates), and to an even greater extent by working ants, who live only 3 years.

Ant food

Red wood ants use mainly protein food (other insects that are killed and brought to the anthill) and carbohydrate food (sugary plant secretions, flowing tree sap and especially sugar-rich secretions of aphids). The ants feed most of the protein food to the larvae; they feed on carbohydrate food themselves. Ants are characterized by food exchange - tropholaxis. Trophollaxis allows both the nanny and the digger not to be interrupted from their useful activities to search for food - others will take care of it.

Workers - foragers of red forest ants, whose task is to obtain food, bring 3,000,000 - 8,000,000 to the nest during the summer various insects, about 20 buckets of sweet juices, mostly aphid secretions, and 40,000 – 60,000 seeds various plants, which are also eaten.

On summer days, the mass of insects brought to the anthill can reach 1 kg.

It is estimated that the ants of a medium anthill protect 0.25 hectares of forest from harmful insects, and up to 1 - 4 hectares of a large anthill.

Ants primarily prey on those insects that reproduce in large numbers in the forest. Mass insects are harmful insects– caterpillars of butterflies, false caterpillars of sawflies that eat leaves and needles.

Ant communication

When communicating with each other, ants use a variety of signals, mainly by touching each other with their antennae, legs, and heads. Chemical signals are also used.

When looking for the way to the nest, red forest ants use the “language of smells.”

With the help of smell, ants distinguish their nestmates from “strangers”.

It has been noticed that in different cases ants touch, feel, hit each other with their antennae in different ways and change their behavior accordingly. They seem to be explained by peculiar gestures.

The famous Soviet entomologist Pavel Ustinovich Marikovsky noticed more than two dozen signals from ants: “Alien smell!”, “Who are you?”, “Attention!”, “Give me something to eat!”, “Beware!” and others.

When using chemical signals, ants take a defensive pose: they rise high on their hind legs and point the end of their abdomen forward. And immediately a pungent odor is felt: it was the ant that sprayed out a liquid consisting of formic acid and an alarm substance - undecane.

On the roads along which they run from anthill to anthill, ants secrete other, so-called trace substances that allow them not to lose their way.

All ants from the same nest have a common smell, which allows them to recognize each other and prevent ants from other people's nests from entering theirs.

Conclusion:

During the work I came to the conclusion:

1. Anthills form an integral part of the forest community.

2. Anthills are a family, a community, a community (this is certainly a similarity to the structure of human life).

3. Ants living in anthills are eternal builders, brave warriors. These are insects that actively rebuild the world around them.

4. The significance of ants and anthills in nature is great and varied.

5. Ant predation – has a positive effect on the forest, since ants, by eating various insects, protect the forest from possible pests.

By protecting anthills, we protect our forests!

The social structure of ants cannot but amaze: not only are there females, males, and workers among them, but there are also species that contain slaves in their nest, who, being larvae, were taken captive from another anthill. True, these slaves perform the same functions that they would do in their nest, only they take care of the descendants of a foreign species, not their own.

Despite the fact that absolutely all types of ants are predators, they not only catch or pick up prey, but also grow mushrooms, keep livestock, which is aphid, and are the only creatures in the world, with the exception of humans, conducting agricultural activities.

Black, red, red ants belong to a family of insects that belongs to the superfamily Antidae from the order Hymenoptera, which also includes wasps, bees, ichneumon wasps, sawflies and gall moths. In total there are more than 13 thousand species of ants, most of of which lives in tropical latitudes (for comparison: 1,150 species live in the Palearctic, about three hundred in Russia).

The number of this family, according to various sources, ranges from 10 to 25% of the biomass of all terrestrial creatures. True, their weight is extremely small. For example, in the Amazon forests there are 800 million ants per square kilometer, while in total all forest ants weigh half as much as the rest of the inhabitants of the area.

Red, black and red ants are distributed throughout the world. It is worth noting that not only forest and garden ants, but ants in the house are a common occurrence. They are not found except in cold Antarctica and several islands located far from the continent.

Insects build anthills wherever they can, using mainly soil and plants for construction. Their nests can be seen everywhere: on the ground, under stones, in logs, underground; if they happen to settle in a house, they can build an anthill there too. An anthill should never be built in areas with dead insects, as this indicates the presence of disease or other danger.

Such good adaptability is largely due to excellent social organization, the ability to use various resources and maneuverability in their life: if necessary, they will easily change their place of residence.

Description

In nature there are yellow, red, black, red ants, and many of them are not monochromatic, and combine these colors in their coloring.

Speaking about the ant, it should be borne in mind that depending on the species, its size can range from 1 to 50 mm and even more.

Red ants from the genus Mohomorium are considered the smallest: the length of working individuals is 1-2 mm, females and males - from 23 to 4 mm. As for the largest representatives, for example, African males of Dorylus can reach 3 cm, and the uterus during the maturation of eggs, due to a greatly enlarged abdomen, reaches five centimeters.

Despite the fact that ants' vision is poorly developed (and some are completely blind), they distinguish vibrations and movement very well. Their vision is successfully replaced by antennae located on the head, which detect chemical substances, sense the movement of air masses; in addition, with their help, insects transmit and receive signals through touch.

The upper jaws (mandibles) of ants are so strong that they successfully use them to carry food, manipulate various objects, build an anthill and successfully defend themselves. Interestingly, in some species these jaws open 270° and snap shut like traps at speeds of up to 230 km/h.

Lifestyle

An ant family is formed over many years, as a result of which the number of inhabited anthills can be several million (these are already colonies located near each other over vast territories).

Ant society is divided into three castes: females, males and workers. Taking into account the class, a division of labor occurs, and everyone is required to perform their functions at the proper level - from the queen to the worker (if they fail to cope with their duties, the queen is removed, the worker is killed).

By external signs Representatives of the three castes are not difficult to distinguish: while females and males have wings, workers (females with an underdeveloped reproductive system) do not. True, after fertilization, the queen’s wings usually either fall off, or she chews them off for herself, but even in this case, she can be distinguished by her enormous size.

While queens and workers emerge primarily from fertilized eggs, which contain the two sets of chromosomes they received from the egg and sperm, males emerge from unfertilized ones. Before turning into an adult, the red, red, black ant goes through the stages of egg, larva and pupa.

Uterus

One nest can contain from one to several females capable of producing offspring (queen). These individuals are externally distinguished by their larger size and have wings before fertilization.

The female mates only once in her entire life, taking off after the male when a certain moment approaches (this process is called mating flight). There are species that mate with only one male, and others with several dozen. As a result, the uterus receives a supply of sperm in an amount that it consumes throughout its life, and it lives from twelve to twenty years.

After fertilization, the queen either leaves and forms her own family, or remains in the old anthill. If she leaves, she must find a new place for the nest, create the first “room”, and some time later begin to lay eggs in it.

At the same time, in some species, the queen, in anticipation of the first offspring, leaves the anthill in search of food, in others, she sits incessantly on eggs and larvae, maintaining her existence with the help of fat reserves. The queen feeds the larvae with “food” eggs or with the help of the salivary secretion she secretes.

Due to the fact that no one helps her look after the first cubs, the first individuals turn out to be very small, one might even say dwarf.

It will be interesting to know about the queen ant that, contrary to popular belief, she is not the center of the family: the more queens in the nest, the less respectful they are treated. For example, they can give it to another anthill where there is no queen, and even kill it if fertility has decreased, after raising a new queen.

Males

Almost all males, with a few exceptions, emerge from unfertilized eggs, and therefore are carriers of only one set of chromosomes, the maternal one. Almost all of them have wings, and they fight so fiercely among themselves for young females that they often die. In fact, their entire role is reduced to fertilizing young queens, so after mating they die.

Workers

The overwhelming number of individuals are workers, females with an underdeveloped reproductive system, whose main task is to take care of the family living in the anthill. They do not have wings, they are not as large as females, they have smaller eyes, and in some species they are completely absent. The roles between workers are distributed largely depending on the characteristics of their body:

• Soldiers are large workers with disproportionate big head and strong jaws (mandibles), which they can effectively use during combat. While there is no fighting, they perform the same functions as other working red or black ants;
• Nurses, as a rule, are young insects who look after the larvae, who tell them whether a red or black ant of what social status will appear. If necessary, they destroy excess female larvae (this is done to control the number of individuals capable of creating offspring) or change their feeding regime, creating a working individual;
• Foragers - scour in search of food and, having found it, inform the rest of the ants, laying marks to the nest using pheromones.

Among the ants there are builders (monitor the condition of the nest, dig tunnels, repair it), cleaners (clean the anthill and carry dead insects beyond its boundaries), honey barrels (keep reserves of liquid carbohydrate food), shepherds (graze livestock on the leaves, whose role is played by aphids) and representatives of other “professions”.

If it turns out that a worker is not engaged in his duties and copes poorly with them, he changes his profession, for example, a forager turns into a nanny. Insects and old ants do not abandon in trouble: they become watchmen, food keepers or observers. An equally interesting fact is that they care for the wounded and dying: they bring them food, for example, feed them the juice that aphids secrete until they are able to consume it.

Pheromones in the life of insects

An important role in the life of insects is played by glands that secrete various substances; with the help of some, for example, pheromones, they communicate. For example, foragers fix the food they discover with the help of pheromones, and mark the road until all the food ends up in the anthill (as soon as this happens, they stop marking the road with pheromones, and the smell dissipates).

This method allows the ants to cope with unexpected obstacles: if an obstacle suddenly appears on the way, the foragers begin their work. Having found a new path, they mark the road to the anthill, and its relatives begin their journey along the laid route.

Another interesting fact about the ant is its ability, with the help of pheromones, to communicate about the family during the exchange of food (what it currently needs, for example, what kind of food or the need for work in the nest).

Also speaking about the ant, it should be borne in mind that each of them has glands that they use for defense and attack (they are poisonous and almost all species have a sting). For example, some glands produce an acidic secretion, while many of the poisons they produce are characterized by the presence of complex compounds in combination with allergenic proteins. If a black worker ant finds itself in trouble, in order to protect the nest, it commits suicide: as a result of a specific muscle contraction, its abdomen ruptures and the secretion of the gland, which contains substances that glue the enemy, is sprayed out in all directions.

Physical signals

Naturally, insects can communicate with each other not only with the help of pheromones, but also with sounds (some species chirp using abdominal segments), as well as touches (for example, begging for food). There are two opposing opinions: some scientists are convinced that they are absolutely deaf, others categorically disagree with this.

However, it is known for sure that insects sense vibration very well. solids, and some species clearly produce sounds while in the pupal stage. For example, a black ant that has not yet been born communicates its social status to working nannies.

Nutrition

It can be said about ants that almost all of them are predators, scavengers, and also feed on plant foods (adults eat carbohydrate foods, larvae eat protein foods). They find food not only on the ground, but also an ant on a tree in search of food is a common occurrence. For protein food, they eat invertebrates, mainly insects: they pick up corpses, hunt and even raise livestock (aphids).

They get carbohydrate food from honeydew: it is given to them in abundance by their cattle and aphids (except that aphids secrete a special liquid, which red, red and black ants eat with pleasure, and the aphids themselves act as meat). They also feed on seeds, plant sap, nectar, and mushrooms (they often grow the mushrooms they need on their own).

They take all the prey to the anthill, where they distribute it among themselves (they never eat on the side). There are species that have a process in the esophagus, nicknamed the “social stomach”: in it, insects store food during transportation, and, having delivered it to the place, remove it, and then distribute it among the ants.

Role in society

Speaking about the ant, it should be noted that it performs many functions that are useful both for nature and for humans. For example, it saturates the soil with oxygen, and forest ants, as well as residents of fields and gardens, regulate the number of insect pests with their active predatory behavior.

In some cases, this activity also causes damage, primarily for silkworms: by eating their caterpillars, the red or black ant extremely harms the entire industry.

The ability of these insects to make the most of the resources available to them often leads to conflict with humans. For example, since they often raise their “livestock” for cultivated plants, aphids, feeding on sap, often destroy the crop. Insects often invade people's homes, gradually increasing the colony; if they are not stopped in time, they will at least begin to spoil food, spreading various infections.

The relationship between an ant and a person is ambiguous. If in some farms these insects are specially bred so that they help in work, then in others, on the contrary, entire programs are developed in order to fight them as pests.

Such actions are becoming more and more successful: if earlier the fight against ants was carried out using more traditional methods, using substances that do not harm the environment, and were unsuccessful, now various chemicals make it possible to get rid of them in the house in just a few days.

But controlling the population in vegetable gardens, orchards and fields is not so easy: therefore, measures are more aimed at controlling the number of colonies, while most attempts have a short-term effect. Moreover, such a fight against ants requires a lot of caution, since inhaling such toxic fumes is harmful, especially for asthmatics and allergy sufferers.

Program content:

Introduce children to the lifestyle of an ant and the structure of an anthill.
Develop thinking.
Foster curiosity, interest in insects, and a desire to learn something new about them.

Equipment:

Pictures depicting an ant, anthill, eggs, larvae, pupae.
Silhouette of an ant cut out of paper (length 33 cm).

Ant

Anthill diagram

Progress of the lesson:

Guys, today we will start our lesson with a quiz.

Didactic game “The Best”

The most cunning animal is... (fox).
The most cowardly animal is... (hare).
The biggest lover of honey is the forest animal... (bear).
The longest neck is ... (giraffe).
The smallest bird is... (hummingbird).
The largest eggs are laid by... (ostrich).
The most hunchbacked inhabitants of the deserts are... (camels).
The smallest horse is ... (pony).
The fastest animal is... (cheetah).
The smartest animals are... (monkeys).
The longest living animal is... (turtle).

Guys, do you know who is the strongest on earth?
No, not an elephant, not a hippopotamus. The strongest on earth is the ant! After all, he can carry weights 10 times heavier than his own weight.

If we imagine that Vanya (the child is called) is an ant, then he can carry 10 children on himself. (10 people are called). Will our Vanya be able to lift and carry all these guys? No. And an ant can carry a load 10 times heavier than itself. The ant, although small, is a real strongman.

Anthill structure

Ants are also excellent builders. What wonderful anthill houses they build! Anthill is multi-storey building with many apartments, warm, cozy, with good ventilation, with storage rooms, with bedrooms, with children's rooms, with a garbage disposal and a toilet. Ants keep their homes perfectly clean.

All entrances and exits allow fresh air to pass deep into the anthill. All these entrances and exits are guarded by soldier ants.

From above, the ants make a covering of needles and twigs on the anthill. It protects the home from the vicissitudes of the weather, and is repaired and updated by working ants.

Under this covering there is a room that warms up well sun rays. Ants come there to bask in the spring.

There is a cemetery room where worker ants carry dead ants and garbage.

There is a special winter bedroom. Adult ants, in cramped conditions, spend the winter in this room without any offense. They close all the passages and exits in the anthill, huddle together in the winter bedroom and fall asleep.

Ants store grains in a grain warehouse.

Ants bring caterpillars and other prey to the meat pantry.

There is a special barn. Of course, it’s not real cows that live in it, but aphids. Aphids are also insects that, to the delight of ants, secrete a sweet substance. Ants really like it, so they protect the aphids from pests, take the females to anthills for the winter, and in the spring transfer the aphids to the juiciest young shoots. Just as people raise and care for cows, ants take care of aphids.

The queen ant lives in the royal chambers. Every day she lays a huge number of eggs (up to 1500). She is looked after by worker ants.

There are children's rooms in the anthill with eggs, larvae and pupae. After all, every insect, before becoming an adult, is first an egg, then a larva, then a pupa. And only after that - adults. (Display of cards depicting an egg, larva, pupa and adult ant).

Didactic exercise “Place the pictures in order”

The teacher mixes the pictures and invites the children to put them in sequence. You can invite four children to pick up the pictures and line up in the right order.

Dynamic pause and visual gymnastics “Ants”

Children find with their eyes a picture that matches the text. The pictures are located in the corners of the room under the ceiling.

The queen laid eggs in the anthill,
Their relatives immediately surrounded them with care.

Ants are waiting with hope in every nook and cranny,
That ant larvae will turn into pupae.

Here from his chrysalis
A new ant has come out.

Children are divided into “ants” and “anthill”. Anthill: children join hands and form a circle. The “ant” children enter the circle. At the signal “morning,” the “anthill” children raise their hands up, and the “ant” children leave the circle and go to work; at the signal “it’s getting dark,” the “anthill” children slowly lower their hands, the “anthill” children rush to get into the circle before the “night” signal, when the “anthill” children lower their hands down.

Life of ants

Questions about the content of the lesson:

1. Why are ants considered the strongest?
2. What is an anthill?
3. How does an anthill work? What “rooms” does it have?
4. Why do ants take care of aphids?
5. How are ants born?
6. Who's in ant family the most important? What does she do?
7. Why do ants have antennae?
8. Why don’t ants fall when they walk on a smooth and vertical surface?
9. What do ants eat?
10. Name the enemies of ants.
11. Why are ants called “forest orderlies”?

It is made from twigs, from pine needles

Will build a real house

No saw and no nails.

Who is the builder?.. Ant.

N. Ivanova

Ants are social insects. They live in families in large anthills. The abdomen of ants is connected to the chest using a thin stalk. They have well-developed upper jaws, which they use both for crushing food and for protection from enemies. Females and worker ants have stingers and poison glands that secrete formic acid.

Ant families consist of castes, each of which performs its own functions. The bulk of the family consists of working individuals. They do everything necessary work in the nest: they build and clean it, get food, take care of the offspring, protect the nest from enemies. Some species have a caste of soldiers - large-headed ants, armed with large jaws and acting as guards. The entire family is produced by a single breeding female founder.

One anthill can contain from several hundred to tens of thousands of individuals. IN warm time year, usually once a year, a mass appearance of winged males and females occurs in the family. The males soon die, and the females shed their wings and begin to found a new nest, in which they lay the first batch of eggs. The female feeds the hatched larvae with nutritious secretions. salivary glands. The larvae turn into pupae, then worker individuals emerge from them, begin to expand the nest, take over protecting the family and feeding new larvae.

Ants eat everything, but they especially love sweets. They even specifically breed aphids and protect them from predators. For them, aphids are like milk cows that supply the ants with sweet, sugary juice.

Today, about 10 thousand species of ants are known. They are distributed on all continents except Antarctica, and are especially numerous in the tropics. More than 200 species live in Russia, about half of them in forests.

MYSTERY

He is a real worker

Very, very hard working.

Under a pine tree in a dense forest

He builds a house from needles.

(Ant) PROVERBS AND SAYINGS

The ant is not big, but it digs mountains.

FOLK SIGNS

If the ants are hiding in a pile - wait strong wind, rain, thunderstorms.

Interesting facts about ants have always interested people, since these insects are considered one of the most fascinating and unusual. These common insects are very responsible, hard-working, and, despite their small size, very strong. All ants live in colonies, each of which has its own queen or, as she is also called, a queen.

Red myrmic ant

All ants, like humans, have their own professions, and they lead an identical lifestyle. As for the specialization of these insects, they are:

• military, soldiers and doctors - these insects perform their specific functions;
• builders and engineers - build housing and equip it, and also deal with communication issues;
• nurses;
• breadwinners;
• livestock breeders and farmers;
• leaf cutters, reapers, woodborers and gravediggers.

These are not all the professions that are available in the ant family, but still the most important. As for the nests of domestic ants, in addition to the working class, they also contain so-called scouts. These insects are not respected by everyone else and perform their functions.

As for the arrangement of an anthill, the typical housing of these insects consists of:

• royal chamber - this compartment is inhabited by a female, who is looked after by ants during her life;
• chambers with eggs, larvae or pupae;
• wintering chamber;
• meat pantry;
• grain barn;
• barn;
• cemetery;
• solarium.

Anthill structure

Among other things, each anthill must be equipped with an entrance, and on top it is covered with various needles and twigs. This covering is primarily intended to protect the anthill from bad weather.

• ants evolved from predators such as wasps, which went extinct in the time of dinosaurs;
• the closest relatives of ants are cockroaches;
• The queen of ants lives for thirty years, but working individuals do not exist for more than three years;
• ants, despite their small size, are capable of carrying objects five thousand times heavier than themselves;
• ants are considered one of the smartest insects, as their brain consists of 250,000 cells;
• Each colony of ants has its own characteristic smell;
• the queen ant never leaves her home and is exclusively engaged in laying eggs;
• the bites of some species of ants can be fatal to human body, as they are very poisonous;
• ants are considered one of the oldest insects, the first individuals were recorded more than a hundred million years ago;
• ants multiply quite rapidly, so if they enter a human home, getting rid of them is quite problematic;
• These insects move exclusively in formation;
• ants can also show not only aggression, but also care towards each other, which is why if an individual is injured, others will look after it throughout the entire recovery period, take care of it and even bring food;
• all ants perform their specific functions and tasks;
• ants can cultivate living organisms to satisfy their needs.

That's not all Interesting Facts about ants for children that have been seen currently, but the most important ones are.

I would also like to note the fact that formic acid has an excellent analgesic effect and copes well with such pathological processes as rheumatism, arthritis, gout, arthrosis and many other diseases.

Can remain completely safe under water for several days

Another peculiarity of ants is that insects can remain completely safely under water for several days, and this does not threaten them with any changes.

No matter how far the ants have gone from their home, they always know how to find their way back. This can only be explained by the fact that these insects leave a kind of trail behind them, consisting of pheromones, and it is thanks to this that they constantly return to the anthill.

As for the process of reproduction of ants, it is rightfully considered quite effective. The production of offspring in an anthill is carried out by only one female, which is called the queen or uterus. Since she is constantly in the anthill and never leaves it, she is the one who lays eggs and cares for them. In addition to the queen, there are other females in the anthill, but none of them can reproduce.

The appearance of offspring in ants occurs only once a year, when young males and females emerge from the pupae.

If ants live at home, then their life activities occur according to completely different rules and laws.

For the winter, ants insulate the anthill

I would also like to note that ants in winter time They do not hibernate at all, and their lives continue to follow the same course. These insects remain to spend the winter in the same anthills; the only thing they do to prevent them from feeling cold in winter is to insulate them.

IN winter period During this time, these insects are not particularly active, so much less food is needed for their existence.

Note! In northern regions, ants can exist even in extreme conditions. low temperatures, cases have been recorded when these insects survived at an air temperature of -58 degrees.

Also, it is ants that can significantly increase soil fertility. This occurs due to the fact that insects make underground passages and thereby loosen the earth. And in the process of this, it is saturated with oxygen and enriched minerals And organic compounds. Therefore, the role of ants in human life and environment quite significant. Our ancestors also believed that if there are ants on a piece of land, this is considered the first sign of a good and fruitful place.

In addition to the positive effects, ants can also lead to negative consequences. This primarily concerns damage to peonies, which, due to the influence of ants, become ugly and distorted.

Ants also have a negative impact when they settle in a person’s home. It is in this case that they cause a lot of inconvenience. You should get rid of these insects in your home immediately, as delay threatens a significant increase in their numbers. Fortunately, nowadays you can buy various drugs and remedies to combat them at any hardware store. If the number reaches a huge number and you cannot cope with insects on your own, then you need to take the help of professionals who use exclusively professional products, which are not possible to purchase on your own.

It is very important to keep the room clean when dealing with these insects, so that once they get there, they will see that there is nothing interesting for them here, and they will calmly leave the room.