Ants belong to [Insecta], [Hymenoptera] and Formicidae. More than10,000 species have been recorded in this world, and it is estimated that the possible number is about 20,000 (Wilson, E.O.).
Ants are the most common insects on the earth and the largest number of insect species. Because all kinds of ants are social groups, they were called "ants" in ancient times. According to the classification of modern morphology, ants can be divided into ants and termites.
There are many kinds of ants, of which more than 9,000 are known in the world and more than 600 have been identified in China. Ants live a long life. Worker ants can live for a few weeks to 3-7 years, and queens can live for more than ten years or decades. An ant nest can grow in 1 place for several years or even more than 50 years.
It belongs to Arthropoda, Insecta, Hymenoptera and Formicidae.
The shape of ants is divided into three parts: chest and abdomen, and has six legs. Ant eggs are about 0.5 mm long, irregular oval, milky white, and worker ants are smaller, about 2.8 mm long and brown all over. It is easy to find a single ant by careful observation. Both male and female ants are bulky. The abdomen is obese, the head and chest are brown, the first half of the abdomen is brown, and the second half is brown. Male ants are about 5.5 mm long. The female ant is about 6.2 mm in length.
Ants are typical social insects, which have three elements of social insects, that is, individuals of the same species can cooperate with each other to take care of their larvae; There is a clear division of labor; In the ant colony, at least hungry generations overlap, and future generations can take care of the previous generation for a while.
In addition, it should be pointed out that termites are not ants. Besides having the same society, termites are also very different from ants in physiological structure.
Biological behavior refers to the adaptive activities that organisms can perceive from the outside. Behaviorism is the study of these activities. Morphology and behavior were first noticed by people, but it was not until the19th century that people obtained the theoretical weapons and experimental means for the study of biological behavior. The theory of evolution has raised the behavior of animals to an adaptive level.
At present, the classification of biological behavior is very confusing. From the perspective of heredity and development, it is generally divided into innate behavior and acquired behavior, namely instinctive behavior and learning behavior. However, this classification method is not commonly used. People generally classify behaviors according to their functions. Unfortunately, this classification method is not strict, and there are a lot of overlapping areas. This website will also unveil the mystery of the ant world from this angle.
Behavioral ecology is an interdisciplinary field between ethology and ecology, and it is a science that studies the origin, occurrence or development, adaptive function and evolutionary history of animal behavior. Behavioral ecology is one of the youngest branches of ecology, which developed rapidly in 1960s and 1970s. With the development of physiology and psychology, by the second half of the 20th century, the genetic research of biological behavior was vigorously carried out under the guidance of genetics. Modern behavioral ecology has been integrated into genetics, biological evolution and other disciplines, and modern molecular biology has also been applied to the study of behavioral ecology.
Ants are the dominant group in modern animal system, with a large number and very complicated social structure. Ants are inextricably linked with other creatures. According to statistics, there are as many as 3000 species of arthropods living in ant nests. The diversity of ants and related species, as well as the diversity of ant social division of labor, has created the diversity of ant behavior.
The behavior of ants is so colorful and attractive, and it is also a big maze. As E.O. Wilson pointed out, it sometimes leads naturalists astray.
Ants are known as "nutritional treasure house of micro-animals" and "natural medicine processing factory". The crude protein content of ant powder is as high as 5 1.23%, which is higher than chicken, fish and beef. Ants are also famous medicinal insects, and ants and their preparations have many pharmacological effects. It has two-way immunomodulation, strong immune function and inhibition; Can promote immune deficiency. Can relieve acute and chronic experimental inflammation. It has obvious analgesic and hypnotic effects. In particular, it has obvious effect of tonifying kidney and strengthening yang, has androgen-like effect and can promote the development of sexual organs. It can also enhance the function of islet β cells and lower blood sugar. Ants synthesize a large amount of ATP, which can resist fatigue and enhance physical strength. It has obvious effects of scavenging free radicals, delaying aging and prolonging the life of the body.
Ants are known as "nutritional treasure house of micro-animals" and "natural medicine processing factory". The crude protein content of ant powder is as high as 5 1.23%, which is higher than chicken, fish and beef. It contains more than 20 free amino acids, including 7 essential amino acids except tryptophan. As for tryptophan, because it is completely destroyed in acid hydrolysis environment, it is not certain that it does not contain tryptophan.
Among the trace elements necessary for human body, manganese, tin, iron, iodine, copper and zinc are the most important, and these elements are very rich in ants, especially zinc, which reaches 1 10mg/Kg, much higher than other animals.
Ants also contain a variety of vitamins and triterpenoids, such as lemongrass terpenes and limonene terpenes.
Ants are also famous medicinal insects, and ants and their preparations have many pharmacological effects. It has two-way immunomodulation, strong immune function and inhibition; Can promote immune deficiency. Can relieve acute and chronic experimental inflammation. It has obvious analgesic and hypnotic effects. In particular, it has obvious effect of tonifying kidney and strengthening yang, has androgen-like effect and can promote the development of sexual organs. It can also enhance the function of islet β cells and lower blood sugar. Ants synthesize a large amount of ATP, which can resist fatigue and enhance physical strength. It has obvious effects of scavenging free radicals, delaying aging and prolonging the life of the body. Ants are excellent raw materials for health food and have great development prospects in clinical treatment [1].
However, the composition of ants varies from species to species, and not all ants are suitable for food or medicine. At present, there are three genera of ants used as food and medicine in China: spiny ant, ant genus and bowback ant [2]. According to reports, there are 12 species of safe edible or medicinal ants: Polyrhachis vicina, polyrachis bibita a, Polyrhachis rubra, Red Forest Ant, Red-bellied Ant, Japanese Bowback Ant, Northern Ant, Green Society Ant, Japanese Brown Forest Ant, Beijing Concave-headed Ant, Ural Ant and Shikai Ant. Paving ants belong to Simone Pavan ant subfamily, and their side effects may be great. However, Polyrhachis bidentata and Polyrhachis topsoil are considered to be the same species by many scholars.
Do ants get lost?
Ants often come out to look for food, and sometimes they are lucky enough to find it right away; Sometimes it's bad luck Haven't found it for a long time. Will they recognize me when I go back and walk for a long time?
Naughty children often erase a section of the road that ants have just climbed, and then find that ants are at a loss when they find the original road. It is true that ants sometimes leave smells where they have climbed, but some ants don't leave smells, but remember the natural smells along the way and then find their way home.
In addition, ants are also very sensitive in vision and can use the scenery of land and sky to find their way. Someone once covered a group of ants who were about to return to their nests with cylindrical tools, so that they could only see the sky. Therefore, they can still follow the correct route. Later, people put a big board across the ants and kept it as low as possible so that they could not see the sky and the surrounding scenery. So they found themselves beginning to lose their direction and crawl at random.
It can be seen that not only the surrounding scenery, the position of the sun, but also the sunlight reflected by the blue sky can help ants identify the direction.
Why do ants line up for action?
Have you noticed that ants are always United in their actions, as if they are all keeping in touch with each other on their mobile phones? What magic weapon do they have?
Ants do have their own way of contacting their companions. Although they are scattered around for food, as long as someone finds food, in addition to quickly taking a small piece back to the nest, they will remember to secrete aromatic signals along the way and urgently inform their companions to come to support. Nearby ants smelling the fragrance will sniff this scent route all the way to find food, and Qi Xin will work together to move all the food back to the nest. These ants moving along the smell form a long line and move forward in an orderly way.
This aromatic substance secreted by ants is called pheromone. Because of its high volatility, after a few minutes, all the food is transported back to the nest, and the fragrance disappears, so as to avoid the arrival of another ant, and the result is empty.
Do ants like aphids?
In March, a large number of aphids often harm crops. At the same time, many ants will be found around. Don't think they are here to eat aphids. In fact, it is helping aphids and indirectly harming crops!
Observing these ants, they will pat the aphid's ass with their tentacles from time to time, and seem to get along well with him. The aphid who was slapped in the face actually turned up his ass and excreted a sweet and fragrant "honey dew" to let the ants have a full meal.
This honey dew is made by aphids sucking the juice of crops, some of which are for their own use and some are discharged from the anus. Because it contains a lot of sugar, ants like it very much.
Ants fall in love with aphids because of honey dew, so when aphids are in danger, ants will come forward. In addition, when the aphid's habitat is short of food, ants will move it to a place with enough food.
The eggs of aphids may freeze to death in winter, and ants will help hide them at home. Sometimes, ants are afraid that their eggs will get wet, and when the weather is fine, they will move out to bask in the sun. It was not until the next spring that the little aphids came out and the ants began to move them to delicious plants.
Why do ants fight?
In summer, you can often see many ants, large and small, crawling around, carrying insect residues and dirt ... sometimes they bite and fight in groups as soon as they meet, and the struggle is very fierce.
Why do ants fight? Some entomologists believe that ants fight for food, so they use the theory of intraspecific struggle to explain it. However, many entomologists believe that this is not an intraspecific struggle, but a chemical forced reaction.
In order to prove this phenomenon, they did the following experiments: put ants in different nests together and kill them as soon as their tentacles touch them; On the contrary, when ants in the same nest are put together, they not only don't fight or bite, but also feed each other.
Entomologists explained that ants in different nests have a special "nest smell". This "nest smell" is different from nesting materials, stored food and its own secretions. Every ant has the ability to distinguish the smell of its nest. Once other ants are found not to be members of their own family, they will fight with each other and gradually form a "war". Interestingly, the ants that were killing were washed away with water and put together. After meeting, they left safely. If you sprinkle some spices on an ant, it can't go back to its nest, and the ants in the same nest will mistakenly think that it is an enemy and be driven out.
Others believe that killing ants in groups is directly related to the size of the group. Especially when different groups of ants meet together, it will immediately cause a fight. When a single ant meets, there is less chance of fighting.
Ants put out the fire and drink water!
Ant extinguishing fire
Fabers, a French entomologist, made an interesting experiment. He put a lighted candle on the top of the nest. About a minute later, the ant noticed the "fire alarm". At first, they ran back and forth in panic. Then, as if they had agreed, countless ants bravely climbed the burning wick and secreted formic acid to put out the fire. After some ants "sacrificed", countless ants rushed up again. After about 60 seconds, the candle was extinguished. A few days later, Fabres repeated the same experiment again. This time, it took the ants only 40 seconds to put out the candle fire, and no ant was killed.
Ants are addicted to alcohol
There is a bug that often haunts the ant kingdom. When it touches the worker ants, it touches the worker ants with its tentacles. Those worker ants will willingly spit out the hard-earned food from the crops and give it to eat. This bug is only 5-6 mm long and has yellow bristles on both sides of its stomach. As long as ants pull out their bristles, they will emit a volatile aromatic liquid, and its chemicals are very similar to alcohol, so ants like to drink it very much, so they are willing to feed the worms and their larvae to get the "wine" they like to drink.
The hierarchy among members of the ant family! ! !
All ants live in social groups. Generally speaking, there are four different kinds of ants in a group.
1, Queen Ants: Female ants with reproductive ability, or female ants, are the largest in the colony, especially with large abdomen, developed reproductive organs, short antennae, small chest and feet, wings, wings or no wings. The main responsibility is to lay eggs, breed offspring and manage this big family.
2. Male ant: or father ant. Small head, undeveloped upper jaw and slender tentacles. It has developed reproductive organs and external genitalia, and its main function is to mate with the queen ant.
3. Worker ants: capable ants. Wingless, generally the smallest individual in the group, but the largest number. The compound eye is very small, and the monocle is very small or not. The maxilla, antennae and three pairs of pectoral feet are well developed and good at walking. Worker ants are infertile females The main duties of worker ants are to build and expand nests, collect food and feed young ants and queens.
4. Soldier ant: It has a big head and a well-developed upper jaw, and can crush hard food, thus becoming a fighting weapon when defending groups.
As one of the common insects, ants are distributed all over the world, almost everywhere, and are the dominant species among insects, with more individuals than all terrestrial organisms. There are many kinds of ants. The largest ants are in Queensland, Australia and northern New South Wales, becoming bull ants. The worker ant of this rare ant is 3.7 cm. Because the male ant has a long upper jaw, it is relatively large, but not very heavy. The smallest ant is a thief ant, and its worker ant is only 0. 15-0.26 cm long. In tropical forests all over the world, there is a kind of blind carnivorous army ant, which can be called the overlord of the insect world. When a team of 65,438+100000-65,438+100000 has been formed, people and animals will only die if they dare to stay on the road. It is said that army ants can eat a sleepy mang and a sheep tied to a bone in a few hours.