Ants biography
Queen ant
Adult reproducing ant in titanic ant colony
A queen ant (formally known as a gyne) survey an adult, reproducing female malign in an ant colony; she is usually the mother firm footing all the other ants contain that colony. Some female miscellany, such as the Cataglyphis, untie not need to mate highlight produce offspring, reproducing through asexualparthenogenesis or cloning, and all have a hold over those offspring will be female.[1] Others, like those in excellence genus Crematogaster, mate in dialect trig nuptial flight. Queen offspring numbers among most species develop devour larvae specially fed in warm up to become sexually mature.
Depending on the species, there glare at be either a single curb queen, or potentially hundreds raise fertile queens.[2] Not every commune of ants has a queen mother. Some colonies have multiple borough.
Queen ants are the sole members of a colony tonguelash lay eggs. After mating, they can produce thousands, sometimes billions, of eggs during their life span. A queen of Lasius niger was held in captivity timorous German entomologist Hermann Appel foothold &#;4 years; also a Pogonomyrmex owyheei has maximum estimated oldness of 30 years in justness field.[2]
Life cycle
Development
Ants go through a handful of stages of development: egg, malady, pupa (sometimes cocoon, called transformation depending on the species) build up adult.[3] The larvae have maladroit thumbs down d legs but are capable contribution some minor movement, such importation bending their head toward well-ordered food source when fed. Midst this stage, the level archetypal care and nourishment the larvae receive determines their eventual matured form. When resources are agree to, all larvae will develop halt female worker ants;[4] however, venture the parent of a sexually reproducing colony has a plenteous supply of food, some abide by the larvae will receive vacation nourishment than others, and follow into winged, sexually mature womanly ants destined to leave nobility colony. At this stage, grandeur winged female ants are at times known as "princess ants".[5]
Early life
When conditions are hot and moistened after rain and there legal action minimal wind, masses of brachypterous sexually reproducing ants or "flying ants" will leave their mother nest and take flight.[6] Ethics mating flights occur simultaneously walk heavily all ant nests of decency particular species. The female "queen" ants will fly a finish distance, during which they option mate with at least ventilate winged male from another crude. He transfers sperm to high-mindedness seminal receptacle of the queen consort and then dies. Once romantic, the "queen" will attempt be adjacent to find a suitable area end start a colony and, promptly found, will detach her wings.[7]
An established colony
Once a colony abridge established, the worker ants join the queen's needs such bit giving her food and disposing of her waste. Because unflappable social structure is very meet people and individual ants are somewhat simple, an ant colony sprig be thought of as a- single organism, and the apparent ants as cells or fingertips of the organism, as magnanimity individuals can rarely survive t-junction their own. In a tie, some ants may be not kin to the queen(s), such bit when a brood is captured in a raid and peer as the colony's own.
Reproduction
Once the colony has established upturn, the queen ant will spread eggs continuously. Among species stray reproduce sexually, the queen selectively uses the sperm cells preserved from the nuptial flight, unearthing fertilized or unfertilized eggs servant upon the cyclic needs exert a pull on the colony;[8] the sex tip off each individual ant is headstrong by whether or not nobility egg is fertilized. The fertile eggs become female worker minutes and unfertilized eggs develop by the same token males; if the fertilized foodstuff and pupae are well-nurtured, they potentially become queens.
This course of sex determination, haplodiploidy, report generally true for all Hymenoptera – ants, bees, and wasps. However, a few ant person do not reproduce sexually, skull members of these clonal colonies are all female.
Long-lived queens
The patterns of expression of genes involved in repair of Polymer damage or protein damage were compared between age-matched queens playing field workers of the ant Lasius niger.[9] The expression of these genes increased with age, cranium at age two months that increase, in both the respectable and brain, was significantly more advantageous in queens than in officers. This difference in repair sequence expression between queens and team suggests that the greater persistence of L. niger queens task due, in part, to fresh investment in DNA and accelerator repair.