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A queen ant (formally known as a gyne) is an adult, reproducing female ant in an ant colony; she is usually the mother of all the other ants in that colony. Some female ants, such as the Cataglyphis, do not need to mate to produce offspring, reproducing through asexual parthenogenesis or cloning, and all of those offspring will be female. [1]
In some cases, the offspring are haploid (e.g., male ants). In other cases, collectively called automictic parthenogenesis, the ploidy is restored to diploidy by various means. This is because haploid individuals are not viable in most species. In automictic parthenogenesis, the offspring differ from one another and from their mother.
Meat ant nest swarming Winged ants in Finland. Nuptial flight is an important phase in the reproduction of most ant, termite, and some bee species. [1] It is also observed in some fly species, such as Rhamphomyia longicauda.
Most organisms forage, hunt, or use photosynthesis to get food, but around 50 million years ago — long before humans were around — ants began cultivating and growing their own food.
Ants vary in colour; most ants are yellow to red or brown to black, but a few species are green and some tropical species have a metallic lustre. More than 13,800 species are currently known [ 37 ] (with upper estimates of the potential existence of about 22,000; see the article List of ant genera ), with the greatest diversity in the tropics.
Ant colonies have a complex social structure. Ants’ jobs are determined and can be changed by age. As ants grow older their jobs move them farther from the queen, or center of the colony. Younger ants work within the nest protecting the queen and young. Sometimes, a queen is not present and is replaced by egg-laying workers.
Lateral view of an Ophthalmopone berthoudi worker, the ant for which the term gamergate was originally coined [note 1]. A gamergate (/ ˈ ɡ æ m ər ˌ ɡ eɪ t / GAMM-ər-gayt) is a mated worker ant that can reproduce sexually, i.e., lay fertilized eggs that will develop as females.
Colonies of real army ants always have only one queen, while some other ant species can have several queens. The queen is dichthadiigyne (a blind ant with large gaster) but may sometimes possess vestigial eyes. [5] The queens of army ants are unique in that they do not have wings, have an enlarged gaster size and an extended cylindrical abdomen ...