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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 ]
The gyne (/ ˈ ɡ aɪ n /, from Greek γυνή, "woman") is the primary reproductive female caste of social insects (especially ants, wasps, and bees of order Hymenoptera, as well as termites). Gynes are those destined to become queens , whereas female workers are typically barren and cannot become queens.
Fire ant queens may live up to seven years and can produce up to 1,600 eggs per day, and colonies will have as many as 250,000 workers. [12] [18] The estimated potential life span is around 5 years and 10 months to 6 years and 9 months. [19] Young, virgin fire ant queens have wings (as do male fire ants), but they often cut them off after mating.
The mating ritual is similar to that of the average fire ants: the queens only mate once in their lifetime, storing the sperms inside their bodies, and the males soon die afterward. The virgin queens and drones of several adjacent colonies gather together for the flight and interbreed. No intra-colony breeding occurs.
When the queen ant dies, there is no replacement and army ants cannot rear emergency queens. Most of the time, if the queen dies, the colony will likely die too. Queen loss can occur due to accidents during emigrations, predator attack, old age or illness. [13] However, there are possibilities to avoid colony death. When a colony loses its ...
The red imported fire ants don't have many natural predators in Southern California, except for phorid flies. The key to killing a local colony of red imported fire ants is using a combination of ...
A colony with an old queen and one or more mated young queens then divides, each successful queen taking a share of the workers. The reason for this behavior is the fact that army ants do not have a physical nest. The queens are thus absolutely dependent on workers to protect them.
Scientists found that 10 or more fire ants can stick together to build a life-saving raft in floods.. Fewer than 10 ants can’t form a stable raft because the “Cheerios effect” of fluid ...