Most species live in soil, leaf litter, or decaying plants. The ant's diet varies among species, but most eat leaves, seeds, small insects, nectar, and honeydew. Ants carry food back to the nest and are capable of carrying more than 10 times their weight. Ants use their keen senses to communicate with colony members. They produce chemicals called pheromones, which are sensed by other ants using their antennae.
They can also use their antennae or other body parts to send messages through touch. Touch messages are transmitted through stridulations, which are sounds and vibrations generated by one ant rubbing its body parts together. These forms of communication relay different messages, such as where food is located or what dangers are present. Colonies of ants are separated into groups of individuals that have different jobs, such as workers, soldiers, and queens.
The workers are all females that take care of the much larger queen and her young, or go out to find food. Winged males mate with queens and die soon after. Queens also have wings, but they break off after mating. The diet of carpenter ants includes living and dead insects, meat, fats and sugary foods of all kinds, including honeydew and nectar from plants. Carpenter ants build nests anywhere they can find water and moldy or damp wood, such as tree stumps, firewood or in the plants around your house.
These tunnels weaken the wood and potentially damage the wood that keeps the house standing. This kind of damage can be very expensive to fix. School teachers — are you interested in more ant and insect materials to share with your students? Find additional information on carpenter ants at the official NPMA website. This ant gets its name from the strong, rotten coconut-like smells it gives off when crushed and the fact that they commonly nest in or around houses.
Native to the United States, these ants are very social, living in colonies of up to , members. Typically living for several years, these ants commonly make their homes in exposed soil, under stones, logs, mulch, debris and other items.
They will also nest in wall and floor cracks. Odorous house ants do not pose a health threat, but they can contaminate food by leaving waste behind. Find more educational materials for use in your classroom, including a profile on odorous house ants , at the official NPMA website.
Although these ants can live inside, they get their name because they make their nests in or under cracks in pavement. They are typically found in the eastern half of the United States, California and Washington. Pavement ant colonies average 3, to 4, members and have several queens. These ants will eat almost anything, including insects, grease, seeds, honeydew, honey, bread, meats, nuts and cheese. This ant gets its name because it most commonly nests in soil next to and beneath slabs, sidewalks, patios, and driveways.
Pavement ants do not pose a health threat, but they can contaminate food by leaving waste behind. Find more information on pavement ants to share with the kids in your classroom at the official NPMA website. Red imported fire ants RIFA, for short are more aggressive than other ant species and have a painful sting. These ants and their telltale mound nests should be actively avoided. Red imported fire ants can adapt to many climates and conditions in and around their environment. For example, if the colony senses increased water levels in their nests, they will come together and form a huge ball or raft that is able to float on the water!
They occasionally enter buildings through holes or cracks in walls and foundations. The sting of a red imported fire ant is painful and often results in a raised welt that becomes a white blister. Persons allergic to insect stings will react more severely.
They are frustrating, not only because of the physical pain they can inflict, but because their mound-building activity can damage plant roots and lead to loss of crops. Teachers can find additional information on red imported fire ants to share with students at the official NPMA website. Ants are some of the most interactive organisms in the world, and a single ant can have thousands of interactions in a single day [ 1 ].
These are all examples of intraspecific interactions, meaning they involve individuals of the same species. But an ant will also interact with different kinds of organisms too—with plants, other insects, fungi, humans, even bacteria! Interactions that take place between individuals belonging to two or more species are called interspecific interactions. Biologists are interested in how species interact with each other, because these interactions can influence the way that species live and change over time, and because these interactions can affect the ecosystems in which they occur [ 2 ].
There are many different species interactions in nature, so biologists classify them according to how many species are involved for example, intraspecific or interspecific interactions , and whether the interaction has positive, negative, or neutral consequences for the interacting organisms.
This article will use ants as examples to demonstrate the major types of species interactions that occur all around us, every day, everywhere in the world. Many interactions between species have winners and losers: one individual benefits, and the other one suffers.
These are called negative species interactions. For example, predation is a type of species interaction in which one organism a predator eats another organism the prey —this is good for the predator but very bad for the prey! Different ant species can eat many different things, and some ants are important predators. Predatory ants often eat other insects like termites and caterpillars, while other ants eat only plants or fungus.
Megaponera ants have only one food—termites—and these ants organize huge hunts in which worker ants infiltrate termite colonies, capture as many termites as they can carry, and bring the termites back to the ant nest to feed to their larvae [ 3 ] Figure 2.
But even though many ants are predators, they can also be prey for other animals. Lots of animals like to eat ants: birds, ant eaters, even humans in some parts of the world! An animal that eats ants is called a myrmecophagous animal. The authors of this paper have eaten ant larvae that were specially prepared, and we can confirm that they are both delicious and nutritious.
Another type of negative interaction is called parasitism. Just like predation, parasitism has winners and losers, but the losers typically survive the interaction. Parasitism occurs when an organism steals a resource from another organism.
These types of ants are non-discriminatory nesters, forming colonies in moist or dry environments. Outdoors, they nest in plants, soil, heavy vegetation, mulch and garbage. Indoors, they can be found under carpets, in wall voids and in houseplants. Crazy ants do not have stingers, but will move around sporadically if disturbed, thus earning their name. They are spread throughout the United States and are especially common along the Gulf Coast.
Other common species in this subfamily include the Caribbean crazy ant Nylanderia pubens and the robust crazy ant Nylanderia bourbonica. All are considered major home invaders, the latter two primarily existing in Florida. The average length of this ant is about 1. They have one node for their body and are medium to dark brown in color.
They are commonly found in areas near people, and nest outdoors by grass edges, under objects on the ground and in parking lots. Indoor nests are sometimes found in bathrooms and kitchens. Dark rover ants have a preference for sweet liquids. Their large colony size can make them a nuisance, although they do not sting. Workers are about 4 to 5 millimeters long. These ants have two nodes and can vary in color, although most are a light reddish-brown.
During warmer months, this species of ant forms nests in a wide range of outdoor habitats including gardens, lawns and shrubbery. They may form nests inside during cold months, particularly under bath tubs, water heaters or other warm areas with moisture.
European fire ants are aggressive and can produce a painful sting when disturbed. Field ants vary in size from 4 to 8 millimeters long. They have one node and also come in a variety of colors including black, brown, yellow-brown and mixed red. This species of ant forms nests mostly in open areas of soil, dead wood or greenery. They are not commonly found indoors. Field ants have stingers and the ability to spray formic acid, which can induce a small amount of pain.
They are common in the Northeast and Midwest United States. Many other ant species exist.
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