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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.
These ants use agricultural methods and are known as one of the few animal groups, along with Homo sapiens, to have achieved the level of eusociality necessary to practice agriculture. It is estimated that ants began this practice at least 50 million years ago. The domestication of plant, fungus, and animal species by ants is well documented.
Ant societies have division of labour, communication between individuals, and an ability to solve complex problems. These parallels with human societies have long been an inspiration and subject of study. Many human cultures make use of ants in cuisine, medication, and rites. Some species are valued in their role as biological pest control ...
The "Spanish fly", Lytta vesicatoria, has been considered to have medicinal, aphrodisiac, and other properties. Human interactions with insects include both a wide variety of uses, whether practical such as for food, textiles, and dyestuffs, or symbolic, as in art, music, and literature, and negative interactions including damage to crops and extensive efforts to control insect pests.
We’re not quite as intriguing as we think we are.
In ants, social conflicts, sex conflicts, or caste conflicts can exist. These conflicts occur within the same colony or supercolony at various levels: on an individual scale, between two or more specific ants; on the scale of sex, between males and females; or on the scale of different castes, between queens and workers.
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To say that ants outnumber people on Earth would be a gross understatement. Earth's ant population of 20 quadrillion outnumbers humans by 2.5 million times, study finds Skip to main content