My Living World LW101 Interplay ANT World, Single, Mixed

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Leafcutter Ants ( Atta cephalotes) – also known as atta ants, they can be found in Central and South America, as well as Northern Texas. These insects can range in size from .11 inches for a worker to .90 inches for a large soldier. Leafcutter ants are not typically aggressive and won’t harm humans unless they feel threatened, which would most likely occur near their nest or when they are gathering food.

Frouz, Jan (1997). "The effect of wood ants (Formica polyctena Foerst) on the transformation of phosphorus in a spruce plantation". Pedobiologia. 41: 437–447.Main article: Ant–fungus mutualism Myrmecocystus, honeypot ants, store food to prevent colony famine.

Ants eat different kinds of foods depending on the type of ant, including sweet sugary foods or fatty oily foods. McGain F, Winkel KD (August 2002). "Ant sting mortality in Australia". Toxicon. 40 (8): 1095–1100. doi: 10.1016/S0041-0101(02)00097-1. PMID 12165310.California Super Colony: Argentine ants have also become an invasive species in California. This colony is smaller than the European super colony, measuring “just” 560 miles.

Beattie AJ, Turnbull C, R B K, E G W (1984). "Ant Inhibition of Pollen Function: A Possible Reason Why Ant Pollination is Rare". American Journal of Botany. 71 (3): 421–426. doi: 10.2307/2443499. JSTOR 2443499. When their nests are disturbed, carpenter ants bite in defense and spray a chemical of formic acid.Genome size is a fundamental characteristic of an organism. Ants have been found to have tiny genomes, with the evolution of genome size suggested to occur through loss and accumulation of non-coding regions, mainly transposable elements, and occasionally by whole genome duplication. [55] This may be related to colonisation processes, but further studies are needed to verify this. [55] Life cycle Meat eater ant nest during swarming Sharkey AJC (2006). "Robots, insects and swarm intelligence". Artificial Intelligence Review. 26 (4): 255–268. doi: 10.1007/s10462-007-9057-y. S2CID 321326. Kipyatkov VE (2001). "Seasonal life cycles and the forms of dormancy in ants (Hymenoptera, Formicoidea)". Acta Societatis Zoologicae Bohemicae. 65 (2): 198–217. Agosti D, Majer JD, Alonso JE, Schultz TR, eds. (2000). Ants: Standard methods for measuring and monitoring biodiversity. Smithsonian Institution Press . Retrieved 13 December 2015.

Shorter, J. R.; Rueppell, O. (2012). "A review on self-destructive defense behaviors in social insects". Insectes Sociaux. 59 (1): 1–10. doi: 10.1007/s00040-011-0210-x. ISSN 0020-1812. S2CID 253634662. Worker ants can’t have babies. That means when a queen dies, the colony usually dies a few months later. Crosland MW, Crozier RH, Jefferson E (1988). "Aspects of the biology of the primitive ant genus Myrmecia F. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)". Australian Journal of Entomology. 27 (4): 305–309. doi: 10.1111/j.1440-6055.1988.tb01179.x. In addition to defence against predators, ants need to protect their colonies from pathogens. Secretions from the metapleural gland, unique to the ants, produce a complex range of chemicals including several with antibiotic properties. [100] Some worker ants maintain the hygiene of the colony and their activities include undertaking or necrophoresis, the disposal of dead nest-mates. [101] Oleic acid has been identified as the compound released from dead ants that triggers necrophoric behaviour in Atta mexicana [102] while workers of Linepithema humile react to the absence of characteristic chemicals ( dolichodial and iridomyrmecin) present on the cuticle of their living nestmates to trigger similar behaviour. [103] Schultz TR (1999). "Ants, plants and antibiotics" (PDF). Nature. 398 (6730): 747–748. Bibcode: 1999Natur.398..747S. doi: 10.1038/19619. S2CID 5167611. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022.

Vellely AC (2001). "Foraging at army ant swarms by fifty bird species in the highlands of Costa Rica" (PDF). Ornitologia Neotropical. 12: 271–275. Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022 . Retrieved 8 June 2008. DeFoliart GR (1999). "Insects as food: why the western attitude is important". Annual Review of Entomology. 44: 21–50. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ento.44.1.21. PMID 9990715.