Skip to main content

#27: Ants

Bonus points if you can spot the beetle larvae on the leaf!


 Litinsects #27: Ants

Think about this for a second...there are 10 QUADRILLION ants 🐜 on the planet. This number is pretty much unfathomable... that’s around 1.3 million ants for every human alive on the planet!

It is estimated that ants make up around 15-25% of terrestrial animal biomass. That means if you put all the animals living on land onto a giant scale and added up the weight, ants would account for about a fifth of that weight. JUST THE ANTS!!!

Here are some fun facts about ants in general, but stay tuned for some later posts that go into some more really cool ant topics.

  • Ants are some of the strongest animals in relation to their size. Depending on the species, an individual can carry from 10-100 times its own body weight and working together they can carry even heavier objects!
  • Despite its name, ANTARCTICA is the only continent not home to ants
  • The most painful insect sting in the world is by the BULLET ANT, named for the intense pain felt by its sting
  • Ants are EUSOCIAL (refer to my last post to learn more about that) and live in COLONIES with queens. Colonies sometimes merge to form supercolonies, the largest of which was recorded to be 3,700 miles long!
  • The aptly named SLAVE-MAKING ANTS invade and enslave ants of other species, which they put to work in their own nests. The workers of this species are specialized for scouting and raiding
  • Ants are the only animals besides humans who farm other animals for a food source! Ants farm and protect aphid colonies and “milk” them for their sweet excretions, which is a great meal for the ants. This interaction is definitely worthy of its own post and I can't wait to share more about this!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

#13: Insect Legs

Litinsects #13: Insect Legs Insect legs can be as diverse as the animals themselves. Some are long and slender like a crane fly’s, some are short and hefty like a mole cricket’s. But what all insects share is the number and layout of those legs. Hexapods have 6 LEGS, a pair each of fore, mid, and hind legs that are made up of the same basic units. Starting closest to the body, they are:  (1) the coxa, which attaches the leg to the thorax  (2) the trochanter (3) the femur, which is oft en the thickest segment  (4) the tibia, often covered in tiny hairs (5) the tarsus, which contains 5 “pseudo-segments”  (6) the pretarsal claws, of which most insects have 2 on each leg The basic units of the leg always occur in this order but may be reduced or highly modified in some species to fit certain tasks such as running, digging, swimming, grasping, or jumping. This photo sums it up perfectly: from < https://wiki.bugwood.org/File:Insect...
Post a Comment
Read more

WELCOME: Social Distancing Entomology Course

All week I’ve been seeing videos and posts of the creative stuff people have been doing while social distancing, all the while thinking, what could I contribute to all the people sitting at home on social media all day?? Well this morning it hit me. I will do what I do best! And that is... drop some nerd knowledge on you all 🤓 Welcome to my social distancing ENTOMOLOGY COURSE!  Every day I will post an insect photo, most of which I’ve taken through my microscope, and explain about the insect group or the feature pictured. My hope is that you might learn something new about insects and maybe, just mayyyyybe, be a bit more fascinated and a bit less grossed out by the most diverse and arguably most successful group of animals to ever live... thanks for reading, stay tuned 🦋 🦟 🦗 🐞 🐜 🐛
Post a Comment
Read more

#22: Caterpillars

Litinsects #22: Caterpillars Since you are freshly familiar with metamorphosis from my last posts, I will today be talking about caterpillars 🐛 and some structures that change drastically in appearance from before to after metamorphosis: legs. Caterpillars are the worm-shaped larval stage of butterflies and moths. They have huge appetites; they mainly feed to grow and gain energy for their transformation into adulthood. In order to do this they need to get around, for which they use le gs because only adult stages have wings.  But insects only 3 pairs of legs, right? So where do all these extra legs come from all down the sides of their bodies?  Caterpillars have 3 pairs of TRUE LEGS, attached to their thorax, which are jointed and have little claws on the end. These legs are still present after metamorphosis, though they will have changed substantially Additionally, they usually have 2 to 5 pairs of PROLEGS, which are protrusions fr...
Post a Comment
Read more