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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 ]
Dinoponera is a strictly South American genus of ant in the subfamily Ponerinae, commonly called tocandiras or giant Amazonian ants. [2] These ants are generally less well known than Paraponera clavata , the bullet ant, yet Dinoponera females may surpass 3–4 cm (1.2–1.6 in) in total body length, making them among the largest ants in the world.
The queen ant's size can range from 4 to 10 millimetres (0.16 to 0.39 in). [2] This species can be distinguished from other subgenus by little amounts of erect hairs on the gena, limited erect hairs on the clypeal disc and finally by the color which is a concolorous dark brown-black. [1]
The colony was estimated to contain 306 million worker ants and one million queen ants living in 45,000 nests interconnected by underground passages over an area of 2.7 km 2 (670 acres). [14] In 2000, an enormous supercolony of Argentine ants was found in Southern Europe (report published in 2002). [ 15 ]
The queen can reach 6-9mm in length and is smaller as a new queen. After a queen mates, she removes her wings and digests her wing muscles as food over the winter. Male phenotype 3.5–4.5 mm long, slim, colour black. Only produced by queens when the nuptial flights are approaching.
The pavement ant is dark brown to blackish, and 2.5–4 millimeters (0.10–0.16 in) long. A colony is composed of workers, alates, and a queen. Workers do have a small stinger, which can cause mild discomfort in humans but is essentially harmless. Alates, or new queen ants and drones, have wings, and are at least twice as large as the workers ...
Castes in F. truncorum include the drones, the winged male ants with the sole purpose of reproducing, the queen, who sheds her wings after the nuptial flight, and the sterile workers which can vary in size depending on specialized tasks. [4] Eusocial behaviour is thought to have evolved as a result of kin selection within monogamous colonies.
Dinoponera gigantea is one of the world's largest species of ant. [4] The females of the species are larger than males, with lengths ranging from 3 to 4 centimetres (1.2 to 1.6 in). [ 5 ] The females are coal-black in color, while the much smaller males are dark red.