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The reasons that can lead ant colonies to clash are varied and depend on the species, locations, and contexts. For a number of them, such as leafcutter ants Atta laevigata, wood ants of the genus Formica, certain species of the genus Carebara, or giant ants Dinomyrmex gigas, it is a matter of territory covered and thus the available food for the different colonies.
Most ant species will send individual scouts to find food sources and later recruit others from the colony to help; however, army ants dispatch a cooperative, leaderless group of foragers to detect and overwhelm the prey at once. [3] [5] Army ants do not have a permanent nest but instead form many bivouacs as they travel.
Ants will even engage in warfare to protect the colony or a food source. This warfare involves tactics that resemble human warfare. Marauder ants will capture and hold down an enemy while another ant crushes it. Ants are loyal to their colony to the death; however, the queen will kill her own in order to be the last one standing.
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
Some soldier safari ants make tunnels to provide a safe route for the workers. Seasonally, when food supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 20,000,000 ants, which constitute a considerable threat to humans, though they can be easily avoided as a column can only travel about 20 meters in an hour.
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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The human and chimpanzee evolutionary lineages split about 6.9 million to 9 million years ago, according to research published in June. Studying chimpanzee behavior may offer insight into our own ...