Ants are eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period. More than 13,800 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified. They are easily identified by their geniculate (elbowed) antennae and the distinctive node-like structure that forms their slender waists.
An ant colony is a population of ants, typically from a single species, capable of maintaining their complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera, though the various groups of these developed sociality independently through convergent evolution. The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, numerous sterile females and, seasonally, many winged sexual males and females. In order to establish new colonies, ants undertake flights that occur at species-characteristic times of the day. Swarms of the winged sexuals depart the nest in search of other nests. The males die shortly thereafter, along with most of the females. A small percentage of the females survive to initiate new nests.
Pogonomyrmex barbatus is a species of harvester ant from the genus Pogonomyrmex. Its common names include red ant and red harvester ant. These large ants prefer arid chaparral habitats and are native to the Southwestern United States. Nests are made underground in exposed areas. Their diets consist primarily of seeds, and they consequently participate in myrmecochory, an ant-plant interaction through which the ants gain nutrients and the plants benefit through seed dispersal. Red harvester ants are often mistaken for fire ants, but are not closely related to any fire ant species, native or introduced.
A decentralised system in systems theory is a system in which lower level components operate on local information to accomplish global goals. The global pattern of behaviour is an emergent property of dynamical mechanisms that act upon local components, such as indirect communication, rather than the result of a central ordering influence of a centralised system.
Carpenter ants are large ants indigenous to many forested parts of the world.
The pharaoh ant is a small (2 mm) yellow or light brown, almost transparent ant notorious for being a major indoor nuisance pest, especially in hospitals. A cryptogenic species, it has now been introduced to virtually every area of the world, including Europe, the Americas, Australasia and Southeast Asia. It is a major pest in the United States, Australia, and Europe. The ant's common name is possibly derived from the mistaken belief that it was one of the Egyptian (pharaonic) plagues.
Harvester ant is a common name for any of the species or genera of ants that collect seeds, or mushrooms as in the case of Euprenolepis procera, which are stored in the nest in communal chambers called granaries. They are also referred to as agricultural ants. Seed harvesting by some desert ants is an adaptation to the lack of typical ant resources such as prey or honeydew from hemipterans. Harvester ants increase seed dispersal and protection, and provide nutrients that increase seedling survival of the desert plants. In addition, ants provide soil aeration through the creation of galleries and chambers, mix deep and upper layers of soil, and incorporate organic refuse into the soil.
The dwarf honey bee, Apis florea, is one of two species of small, wild honey bees of southern and southeastern Asia. It has a much wider distribution than its sister species, Apis andreniformis. First identified in the late 18th century, Apis florea is unique for its morphology, foraging behavior and defensive mechanisms like making a piping noise. Apis florea have open nests and small colonies, which makes them more susceptible to predation than cavity nesters with large numbers of defensive workers. These honey bees are important pollinators and therefore commodified in countries like Cambodia.
Spatial organization can be observed when components of an abiotic or biological group are arranged non-randomly in space. Abiotic patterns, such as the ripple formations in sand dunes or the oscillating wave patterns of the Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction emerge after thousands of particles interact millions of times. On the other hand, individuals in biological groups may be arranged non-randomly due to selfish behavior, dominance interactions, or cooperative behavior. W. D. Hamilton (1971) proposed that in a non-related "herd" of animals, the spatial organization is likely a result of the selfish interests of individuals trying to acquire food or avoid predation. On the other hand, spatial arrangements have also been observed among highly related members of eusocial groups, suggesting that the arrangement of individuals may provide advantages for the group.
Task allocation and partitioning is the way that tasks are chosen, assigned, subdivided, and coordinated within a colony of social insects. Task allocation and partitioning gives rise to the division of labor often observed in social insect colonies, whereby individuals specialize on different tasks within the colony. Communication is closely related to the ability to allocate tasks among individuals within a group. This entry focuses exclusively on social insects. For information on human task allocation and partitioning, see division of labour, task analysis, and workflow.
The Argentine ant is an ant native to northern Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and southern Brazil. This invasive species was inadvertently introduced by humans on a global scale and has become established in many Mediterranean climate areas, including South Africa, New Zealand, Japan, Easter Island, Australia, the Azores, Europe, Hawaii, and the continental United States. Argentine ants are significant pests within agricultural and urban settings, and are documented to cause substantial harm to communities of native arthropods, vertebrates, and plants within their invaded range.
Ropalidia marginata is an Old World species of paper wasp. It is primitively eusocial, not showing the same bias in brood care seen in other social insects with greater asymmetry in relatedness. The species employs a variety of colony founding strategies, sometimes with single founders and sometimes in groups of variable number. The queen does not use physical dominance to control workers; there is evidence of pheromones being used to suppress other female workers from overtaking queenship.
Necrophoresis is a sanitation behavior found in social insects – such as ants, bees, wasps, and termites – in which they carry away the dead bodies of members of their colony from the nest or hive area. The term was introduced in 1958 by E.O. Wilson and his colleagues. The behaviour was however known from before with Pliny making the claim that ants were the only animals other than humans to bury their dead.
The green-head ant is a species of ant that is endemic to Australia. It was described by British entomologist Frederick Smith in 1858 as a member of the genus Rhytidoponera in the subfamily Ectatomminae. These ants measure between 5 and 7 mm. The queens and workers look similar, differing only in size, with the males being the smallest. They are well known for their distinctive metallic appearance, which varies from green to purple or even reddish-violet. Among the most widespread of all insects in Australia, green-head ants are found in almost every Australian state, but are absent in Tasmania. They have also been introduced in New Zealand, where several populations have been established.
Pogonomyrmex occidentalis, or the western harvester ant, is a species of ant that inhabits the deserts and arid grasslands of the American West at or below 6,300 feet (1,900 m). Like other harvester ants in the genus Pogonomyrmex, it is so called because of its habit of collecting edible seeds and other food items. The specific epithet "occidentalis", meaning "of the west", refers to the fact that it is characteristic of the interior of the Western United States; its mounds of gravel, surrounded by areas denuded of plant life, are a conspicuous feature of rangeland. When numerous, they may cause such loss of grazing plants and seeds, as to constitute both a severe ecological and economic burden. They have a painful and venomous sting.
Formica truncorum is a species of wood ant from the genus Formica. It is distributed across a variety of locations worldwide, including central Europe and Japan. Workers can range from 3.5 to 9.0mm and are uniquely characterized by small hairs covering their entire bodies. Like all other ants, F. truncorum is eusocial and demonstrates many cooperative behaviors that are unique to its order. Colonies are either monogynous, with one queen, or polygynous, with many queens, and these two types of colonies differ in many characteristics.
Parischnogaster jacobsoni is a species of social wasp within Parischnogaster, the largest and least known genus of Stenogastrinae. It is distinguished mainly by its tendency to construct ant guards on its nests. Natural selection has led this wasp to have a thick substance emitted from its abdominal glands that allows it to protect its nest from invasions. Parischnogaster as a genus has been relatively unstudied; P. jacobsoni is one of the few investigated species because it has sufficient durability to live near human populations and it has demonstrated unusual resilience to pollution. While P. jacobsoni is a more complex organism than other wasps in Parischnogaster, the genus overall is relatively primitive with respect to social wasps as a whole.
Megaponera analis is the sole species of the genus Megaponera. They are a strictly termite-eating (termitophagous) ponerine ant species widely distributed in Sub-Saharan Africa and most commonly known for their column-like raiding formation when attacking termite feeding sites. Their sophisticated raiding behaviour gave them the common name Matabele ant after the Matabele tribe, fierce warriors who overwhelmed various other tribes during the 1800s. With some individuals reaching up to 25 millimetres (0.98 in) in length, M. analis is one of the world's largest ants.
Social immunity is any antiparasite defence mounted for the benefit of individuals other than the actor. For parasites, the frequent contact, high population density and low genetic variability makes social groups of organisms a promising target for infection: this has driven the evolution of collective and cooperative anti-parasite mechanisms that both prevent the establishment of and reduce the damage of diseases among group members. Social immune mechanisms range from the prophylactic, such as burying beetles smearing their carcasses with antimicrobials or termites fumigating their nests with naphthalene, to the active defenses seen in the imprisoning of parasitic beetles by honeybees or by the miniature 'hitchhiking' leafcutter ants which travel on larger worker's leaves to fight off parasitoid flies. Whilst many specific social immune mechanisms had been studied in relative isolation, it was not until Sylvia Cremer et al.'s 2007 paper "Social Immunity" that the topic was seriously considered. Empirical and theoretical work in social immunity continues to reveal not only new mechanisms of protection but also implications for understanding of the evolution of group living and polyandry.
Camponotus fellah is a species of carpenter ant found across the Middle East and North Africa. This species was formally described by Dalla Torre in 1893. A C. fellah queen holds the record for Israeli ant longevity, surviving for 26 years (1983-2009) in a laboratory environment.
