Ants like to keep busy. They’re always either working on building and cleaning the nest, protecting the queen, or searching for food and resources. There are many different species of ants, and each has its own defining characteristics and behavior patterns, but one thing they have in common is they build their nests and grow their colonies close to food and water sources. Find out more about what ants do and what it can teach us about teamwork, efficiency, and productivity.

Ant colony structure & roles

Ants are social insects that live in colonies that can grow to as many as a few million members. Ants work together to gather food and care for the young, and their behavior is surprisingly coordinated and methodical for such seemingly simple insects.

An individual ant’s behavior depends on its caste. Three castes of ants perform different roles in the colony:

Queens are females who were fed more when they were larvae, so they’re bigger than the workers. The queens lay all the eggs in the colony (amounting to millions in some species). They have wings and fly to find a mate. They tear their wings off before forming a new colony. After mating, the queen starts a new nest (colony) and raises her first worker offspring. This is the only time in her life that the queen does any work other than laying eggs.

Workers are females who were fed less when they were larvae. Workers are wingless and don’t reproduce. They do all the other jobs in the colony, including gathering food, building the nest, and taking care of the young.

Males have wings and fly to mate with queens. The males don’t do any chores in the colony. Their only job is to mate with the queens. They die shortly after mating, so the only time you’ll see them is during this act.

How ants communicate

Ants communicate about colony activity, where to find food, and to spread the word about danger or a threat to the nest. Since they can’t speak, they have a few different ways to get their message across.

Pheromones

When worker ants leave their nest to search for food, they leave behind a trail of pheromones—like leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to help find your way home. After the ant finds food, it travels back home creating another layer of pheromones and leaving a stronger scent along that path as it goes. When other ants come across this thickly laid pheromone trail, they abandon their own random search for food to follow the pheromones to the food source.

Touch

Ants use their antennae or front legs to touch each other as another way to communicate. Trophallaxis, or sharing food mouth-to-mouth, is a type of touch often used between ants that helps them spread important information about an available food source. Touch is also used for grooming, to determine castes, and to tell the difference between dead and living ants.

Body language

Combined with pheromones, ants use body movements like raising their abdomen in the air to offer acknowledgment to other ants. There is also evidence that ants teach each other things through demonstration. Tandem running is a learning process where one ant leads another to a new nest or a food source instead of leaving them to find it on their own.

Sound

Some ant species, such as carpenter ants, make noise by rubbing two parts of their bodies together. The sounds are usually meant to warn other ants of nearby danger or to attract a mate and aren’t the main method of communication most of the time.

Defensive maneuvers

If ants detect a potential threat, they will release pheromones and use their body parts to create vibrations that alert other ants nearby. They have power in numbers and protect themselves, their colony, and their resources by working together to swarm the threat and drive it away. Many species, such as fire ants, army ants, and carpenter ants, will sting or bite when they feel threatened.

If the nest is threatened, some ants will retreat to find a new location. Expert ant control is designed to target the entire nest at once, so there are very few ants left to rebuild the colony.

Building complex nests

Ants build complex nests to house their colony made up of thousands if not millions of ants. The nests are a network of interconnected tunnels and chambers. The chambers serve as nurseries for larvae, food storage, and resting areas for worker ants. The tunnels are passageways but also provide ventilation and temperature control during hibernation to maintain optimal conditions for the colony to thrive.

Ants instinctively know how to build their nests and will work together to prioritize work, such as finding the ideal location, repairing damage, or expanding the nest.

Ants build their nests in a variety of locations, including:

  • Piles of lumber or inside wood: Carpenter ants are known for tunneling through wood to build nests, which can cause damage to your home and other structures.

  • In the walls of a building: Some species, such as Argentine ants, seek out cracks in the walls or foundation to start a nest and form a colony.

  • Underground: Many species like fire ants and little black ants dig through sand and dirt to create a system of intricate tunnels underground, which serves as a home base for all the ants, with the queen staying hidden in a deep chamber far away from possible harm. Outdoor nests are often accompanied by ant hills which serve as an entrance and exit to the nest.

What we’ve learned from ants

Ants are experts at teamwork and unity. They are born with a purpose, and they work together to achieve their goals through efficient communication. Productive and adaptable, ants have an innate sense of organization and determination that keeps them on track in spite of setbacks.

The study of ants has offered insight into the best ways to organize data and the evolution of social systems and contributed to our growing understanding of biodiversity. Their ability to work collectively for the greater good continues to be a source of interest for researchers and is sure to lead to more scientific breakthroughs in the future.

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