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Ants vary in colour; most ants are yellow to red or brown to black, but a few species are green and some tropical species have a metallic lustre. More than 13,800 species are currently known [ 37 ] (with upper estimates of the potential existence of about 22,000; see the article List of ant genera ), with the greatest diversity in the tropics.
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.
The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) is a species of insect that lives in the Sahara Desert.It is the fastest of the world’s 12,000 known ant species, clocking a velocity of 855 millimetres per second (over 1.9 miles per hour or 3.1 kilometres per hour).
Being the largest ants on Earth, army ants, such as African Dorylus queens have the greatest reproductive potential among insects, with an egg-laying capacity of several million per month. Army ant queens never have to leave the protection of the colony, where they mate with foreign incoming males which disperse on nuptial flights .
Weaver ants or green ants are eusocial insects of the Hymenoptera family Formicidae belonging to the tribe Oecophyllini. Weaver ants live in trees (they are obligately arboreal ) and are known for their unique nest building behaviour where workers construct nests by weaving together leaves using larval silk . [ 3 ]
Ants are very interesting insects with very peculiar behaviors. Scientists have been studying them to understand how they live, interact and spend their time in colonies but new, puzzling things ...
Ants as a colony also work as a collective "super mind". Ants can compare areas and solve complex problems by using information gained by each member of the colony to find the best nesting site or to find food. [2] Some social-parasitic species of ants, known as the slave-making ant, raid and steal larvae from neighboring colonies. [19]
The use of the term "agriculture", which may not be entirely appropriate for mutualistic relationships—particularly in cases where a colony is hosted by a plant, such as a tree, in exchange for protection and aid in its survival and growth—is well documented in the scientific literature for processes where ants create crops and directly cultivate plants or fungi.