ant factfile
Ants live in colonies, which vary in size, and can be very crowded, housing up to millions of members. In 2002, scientists discovered supercolony stretching 3,600 miles long from Italy to Spain consisting of billions of ants in a network of nests.
Wow! And I thought our house was crowded growing up.
Most ants dig some sort of mound in the dirt or sand with a system of underground rooms connected by tunnels. They use their saliva to make the dirt walls of the tunnels hard. Rooms in the nest consist of a chamber for the Queen, whose job in life is to make babies, also nurseries for the young, to store food, for waste, and rooms where the workers can rest.
Ants are social insects and every ant has a job. They work as a team to survive. Workers build and maintain the nest, they take rubbish from the nest and put it in a rubbish dump outside, they care for the Queen and the young, and forage for food. Colonies even have undertakers who are responsible for removing dead ants from the nest. Bigger ants with big heads in the Ant Kingdom are soldiers. They are good fighters and their job is to protect the nest. They've been known to use their big heads to block the entrance to the nest to keep intruders out.
Ants are one the world’s strongest creatures in relation to their size. They can carry between 20 and 30 times their own body weight That's like me or you lifting a fully grown African elephant.
Awesome!
They have 6 strong legs that help them run very fast and powerful jaws at the side of their head that open and shut sideways like scissors. An antennae is attached to their head. They use these two feelers to communicate with each other; to hear, taste, touch and smell. They have two stomachs. One to store food for themselves and the other a social stomach to store food to share with their nestmates.
Ants existed when dinosaurs roamed the earth and today can be found on every continent – except ANTarctica.
Ants live in colonies, which vary in size, and can be very crowded, housing up to millions of members. In 2002, scientists discovered supercolony stretching 3,600 miles long from Italy to Spain consisting of billions of ants in a network of nests.
Wow! And I thought our house was crowded growing up.
Most ants dig some sort of mound in the dirt or sand with a system of underground rooms connected by tunnels. They use their saliva to make the dirt walls of the tunnels hard. Rooms in the nest consist of a chamber for the Queen, whose job in life is to make babies, also nurseries for the young, to store food, for waste, and rooms where the workers can rest.
Ants are social insects and every ant has a job. They work as a team to survive. Workers build and maintain the nest, they take rubbish from the nest and put it in a rubbish dump outside, they care for the Queen and the young, and forage for food. Colonies even have undertakers who are responsible for removing dead ants from the nest. Bigger ants with big heads in the Ant Kingdom are soldiers. They are good fighters and their job is to protect the nest. They've been known to use their big heads to block the entrance to the nest to keep intruders out.
Ants are one the world’s strongest creatures in relation to their size. They can carry between 20 and 30 times their own body weight That's like me or you lifting a fully grown African elephant.
Awesome!
They have 6 strong legs that help them run very fast and powerful jaws at the side of their head that open and shut sideways like scissors. An antennae is attached to their head. They use these two feelers to communicate with each other; to hear, taste, touch and smell. They have two stomachs. One to store food for themselves and the other a social stomach to store food to share with their nestmates.
Ants existed when dinosaurs roamed the earth and today can be found on every continent – except ANTarctica.
There are more than 10,000 species of ants around the
world. Here’s a few of them:
* Carpenter Ants get their name because they build their nests in wood
* Pavement Ants make their nests in or under the cracks in pavements.
* Red or Fire Ants have a painful, fiery sting
* Slavemaker Ants raid the nests of other ants and steal their young, which they force to work as slaves in their nests.
* Leafcutter Ants use their sharp jaws to cut leaves, which they turn into pulp
to make fungus gardens to feed their nestmates.
* The giant Dinosaur Ant of Peru is one of the largest in the world, measuring about 3cm long.
world. Here’s a few of them:
* Carpenter Ants get their name because they build their nests in wood
* Pavement Ants make their nests in or under the cracks in pavements.
* Red or Fire Ants have a painful, fiery sting
* Slavemaker Ants raid the nests of other ants and steal their young, which they force to work as slaves in their nests.
* Leafcutter Ants use their sharp jaws to cut leaves, which they turn into pulp
to make fungus gardens to feed their nestmates.
* The giant Dinosaur Ant of Peru is one of the largest in the world, measuring about 3cm long.
