Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The queen is the reproductive member of the colony. Some ant species will only have one queen, while others will form polygynous colonies of multiple queens, such as Argentine ants Linepithema humile. [2] The workers are responsible for supporting the queen, maintenance, and foraging. Unlike queens and drones, workers are born wingless.
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 ]
Having a queen is what makes a "queenright" hive, nest, or colony of eusocial insects. [1] [2] A colony with multiple queens is said to be a polygyne form, whereas one with only one is a monogyne form. The ancient Greek origin of gyne meant a woman who had given birth to at least one child. [3]
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.
The largest size of this bull ant species is reached by the queen, about 22 to 24 mm (0.87 to 0.94 in) long.Males grow to 16 mm (0.63 in), and the worker ants average 14 to 18 mm (0.55 to 0.71 in) long. [1]
The driving selection pressure that causes ant species to form colonies through pleometrosis appears to be inter-colony competition in areas with high colony density. When a queen enters an area in which she wants to form a colony, there may be a finite amount of resources to fuel the colony thus necessitating intense competition and territoriality for resources between ant colonies. [2]
Formica truncorum is a species of wood ant from the genus Formica.It is distributed across a variety of locations worldwide, including central Europe and Japan. Workers can range from 3.5 to 9.0mm and are uniquely characterized by small hairs covering their entire bodies.
Iridomyrmex sp. queen founding chamber found under stone in New Zealand. emerge from their nest and immediately climb onto tall structures (such as tree trunks, fence-posts, or long flora) where they begin to fly and copulate. [4] Depending on the species, a queen either mates with a single male or with multiple males. [55]