How Does an Ant Colony Start? 10/8/2017
Ant colonies are often thought of as pests, but very few people have actually went deep into the fundamentals of the ant world. This post will be about how a colony functions during their reproductive and founding stages.
The Start
A colony starts off with a single queen, which is born as a winged, unfertilized queen ant (alate). This queen will be born to another colony, and cared for and raised by the workers. Male alates are also cared for and raised by the workers. In fact, the only males in the most and colonies are male alates, all workers (and queens) are female.
So once the winged queen is born, does she just fly away and lay eggs? Well, not exactly. She does fly away, but in a much more organized way, called nuptial flights.
These nuptial flights are triggered when certain weather patterns take place. These often include rain (especially in deserts), humidity, and warmth. During a nuptial flight, multiple colonies will send their alates out of the nest, and they will fly off high into the air. Then, they will mate in midair, and then descend back to the ground.
Oftentimes, people confuse these flying ants with wasps, as they have a wasp-like body, but you can differentiate between the two because ants are very clumsy fliers, and fly much slower, and also kind of resemble falling leaves, except much smaller and shinier because of their wings. I remember a few months ago that there were thousands of little winged insects in my backyard, emerging from a little corner. It wasn't till a few weeks ago that I went over there and realized that there was an ant colony there, and that I had just witnessed a nuptial flight!
Anyways, once they come back to the ground, the males will die, having fulfilled their purpose in life. But for the queens, the journey has just begun. Once they land, they will often tear off their wings to remain inconspicuous, but not always. Then, the queen will look for a good place to make her nest. Once she finds a suitable place, she will start digging her "founding chamber", which is where she will start her colony. From here, the queen will do one of two things.
She either will block the entrance of her chamber and feed her developing young, and herself, by turning the wing muscles in her thorax into food; or she will go out and forage for food while she doesn't have workers, and use that to feed herself and her children. The method of founding using only the wing muscles is used by ants that are "fully claustral". The method of foraging for food during the founding stages is used by ants that are "semi-claustral".
After she is finished digging her founding chamber, the queen will lay eggs and nurture them into the larval stage. While the young are in their larval stage, they will eat protein provided by the queen. One they have grown large enough, the larvae will pupate. It is worth noting that although some species' larvae make cocoons around themselves out of silk, others don't, which gives those without a silk casing the appearance of a frozen, crumpled up ant. Once the pupae eclose (hatch), the queen will stop foraging (if she was semi-claustral), and her role in the colony will only be egg laying, as from that day onward, her workers will do all the foraging for her.
Once the colony matures to a certain level, it too will start producing queens that will one day fly out of the nest and make colonies of their own. Colonies of ants typically have a lifespan of between five and twenty years, but there is quite a bit of variation in ants. And that, is how an ant colony starts.
I hope you found this post interesting, and thanks for reading!
Picture found on Pixabay :
https://pixabay.com/en/ant-flying-ant-ants-insect-nature-2652868/
The Start
A colony starts off with a single queen, which is born as a winged, unfertilized queen ant (alate). This queen will be born to another colony, and cared for and raised by the workers. Male alates are also cared for and raised by the workers. In fact, the only males in the most and colonies are male alates, all workers (and queens) are female.
So once the winged queen is born, does she just fly away and lay eggs? Well, not exactly. She does fly away, but in a much more organized way, called nuptial flights.
These nuptial flights are triggered when certain weather patterns take place. These often include rain (especially in deserts), humidity, and warmth. During a nuptial flight, multiple colonies will send their alates out of the nest, and they will fly off high into the air. Then, they will mate in midair, and then descend back to the ground.
Oftentimes, people confuse these flying ants with wasps, as they have a wasp-like body, but you can differentiate between the two because ants are very clumsy fliers, and fly much slower, and also kind of resemble falling leaves, except much smaller and shinier because of their wings. I remember a few months ago that there were thousands of little winged insects in my backyard, emerging from a little corner. It wasn't till a few weeks ago that I went over there and realized that there was an ant colony there, and that I had just witnessed a nuptial flight!
Anyways, once they come back to the ground, the males will die, having fulfilled their purpose in life. But for the queens, the journey has just begun. Once they land, they will often tear off their wings to remain inconspicuous, but not always. Then, the queen will look for a good place to make her nest. Once she finds a suitable place, she will start digging her "founding chamber", which is where she will start her colony. From here, the queen will do one of two things.
She either will block the entrance of her chamber and feed her developing young, and herself, by turning the wing muscles in her thorax into food; or she will go out and forage for food while she doesn't have workers, and use that to feed herself and her children. The method of founding using only the wing muscles is used by ants that are "fully claustral". The method of foraging for food during the founding stages is used by ants that are "semi-claustral".
After she is finished digging her founding chamber, the queen will lay eggs and nurture them into the larval stage. While the young are in their larval stage, they will eat protein provided by the queen. One they have grown large enough, the larvae will pupate. It is worth noting that although some species' larvae make cocoons around themselves out of silk, others don't, which gives those without a silk casing the appearance of a frozen, crumpled up ant. Once the pupae eclose (hatch), the queen will stop foraging (if she was semi-claustral), and her role in the colony will only be egg laying, as from that day onward, her workers will do all the foraging for her.
Once the colony matures to a certain level, it too will start producing queens that will one day fly out of the nest and make colonies of their own. Colonies of ants typically have a lifespan of between five and twenty years, but there is quite a bit of variation in ants. And that, is how an ant colony starts.
I hope you found this post interesting, and thanks for reading!
Picture found on Pixabay :
https://pixabay.com/en/ant-flying-ant-ants-insect-nature-2652868/
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