When we view an ant hole swarming with its busy workers; it is amazing to think that this colony started with a single, hardworking queen ant. The queen can live up to the age of twenty-eight and is larger than the other ants with a pair of wings. Because of her need to start a colony, the queen flies off and mates with several males. The queen, who is not even close to done with her work, descends from her parental flight, and snaps off her wings. She industriously gets to work digging a nest and starts laying eggs. After a few of her eggs hatch and become worker ants, she lies down, laying eggs for the rest of her life. After studying the queen ant, we know that this hard-working, industrious ant truly is the mother of the colony.
After the queen ant starts the colony, there is the need to feed all of the ants in the colony. The most diminutive ants of the colony must diligently work at the fungus gardens, because the gardens are located in very narrow caverns deep within the nest. The ants must sow their crop of fungus, which they get from garbage and leaves. The mushrooms do not actually sprout; while this may be a problem for us, it isn’t for the ants, who munch on only the roots. The workers, who are a very important part of the colony, have a special type of bacteria on their skin. This fundamental antibiotic keeps the fungus from growing moldy. Gardener ants really are a tiny, but very important part of the colony.
Not only is there the need for feeding the colony, but there also is the need for some ants to watch the little ones, who do not yet play their part in the colony. The ants carefully construct nurseries near the surface of the nest, so that the inhabitants of the nursery will be warmer. That is why, when you disturb a nest, you will see the worker ants hastily picking up the “children” and carrying them deeper into the nest, while the nurseries are carefully rebuilt. Because of their delicacy, the nurse ants have to lick and turn over the eggs so that they don’t become moldy. The hatched larvae, which can be very pesky creatures, like to snack on the eggs, so the nurses have to move the larvae away from the eggs. The diligent nurses also feed the larvae pieces of insect. In all, the nurses play a very important part in the colony.
The colony, which started with a single queen ant, multiplies, and gives us a very good example of fortitude, diligence, and perseverance.
No comments:
Post a Comment