Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
T. sessile is a small ant that ranges in color from brown to black, and varies in length from 1 ⁄ 16 to 1 ⁄ 8 inches (1.5–3.2 mm). When crushed, these ants leave a smell which leads to their nickname "stink ant".
The language these ants use is rather sophisticated: the ants adapt their communication, using shorter messages for frequently used locations and compressing some more regular messages. [4] Using a method based on measuring the time it takes the ants to communicate various messages, it has been shown that they can to use simple arithmetic ...
Towards the end of the 1950s, Edward O. Wilson defined substances that trigger the alarm and burrowing behavior of ants as chemical releaser. [24] In 1961, the British biochemist Robert Kenneth Callow identified another pheromone, also known as the queen bee pheromone, with the compound ( E )-9-oxo-dec-2-enoic acid , or 9-ODA for short. [ 25 ]
In Texas, 79% of participants in a survey stated they had been stung by red imported fire ants, while 20% had not. 61% of West Texans state they had been stung by the ants before, compared to 90% in central Texas, 89% in east Texas, 86% in the gulf coastal regions, 78% in the south and 72% in the north. [35]
In the 1930s, colonies were accidentally introduced into the United States through the seaport of Mobile, Alabama.Despite earlier views that cargo ships from Brazil docking at Mobile unloaded goods infested with the ants, [1] recent DNA research confirmed that the likely source population for all invasive S. invicta in the United States occurred at or near Formosa, Argentina, and virtually ...
The red imported fire ant is a member of the S. saevissima species-group. Members can be distinguished by their two-jointed clubs at the end of the funiculus in workers and queens, and the second and third segments of the funiculus are twice as long and broad in larger workers.
The marked male is interpreted as an invader by worker ants and is killed. [76] Most ants are univoltine, producing a new generation each year. [77] During the species-specific breeding period, winged females and winged males, known to entomologists as alates, leave the colony in what is called a nuptial flight. The nuptial flight usually takes ...
Crazy ants obtain much of their food requirements from scale insects, which are plant pests that feed on sap of trees and release honeydew, a sugary liquid. Ants eat honeydew, and in return protect the scale insects from their enemies and spread them among trees, an example of mutualism. The honeydew not eaten by the ants drips onto the trees ...