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In ant colonies using the gamergate system, where all workers have a spermatheca and thus the potential to become egg-laying individuals, conflicts are much more violent and are a regular part of colony management. [4] [8] Workers may engage in contests and confrontations to determine who will have the right or possibility to lay eggs. In these ...
Because of this, ants are a popular source of inspiration for design in software engineering, robotics, industrial design, and other fields involving many simple parts working together to perform complex tasks. [2] The most popular current model of self-organization in ants and other social insects is the response threshold model.
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 ...
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We’re not quite as intriguing as we think we are.
The word myrmecology was coined by William Morton Wheeler (1865–1937), although human interest in the life of ants goes back to ancient times. The earliest scientific thinking based on observation of ant life was that of Auguste Forel (1848–1931), a Swiss psychologist who initially was interested in ideas of instinct, learning, and society.
Ant communication in most species involves pheromones, which is a method using chemical trails for other ants or insects to find and follow. [ 1 ] However, ants of some species can communicate without using pheromones or chemical trails in general.
Ant colonies have a complex social structure. Ants’ jobs are determined and can be changed by age. As ants grow older their jobs move them farther from the queen, or center of the colony. Younger ants work within the nest protecting the queen and young. Sometimes, a queen is not present and is replaced by egg-laying workers.