Brief Information

Ants (M. Pharaonis)
Brief Information
Ants are insects of the family Formicidae and belong to the order Hymenoptera. They inhabit all continents save for Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and parts of Polynesia and Hawaii. Ants constitute 20% of the earth’s organisms, i.e. there are one million ants versus each single human-being.
Ant hierarchy comprises of a queen with one task of laying eggs. For some ant species like Termite, the queen length may reach 9 cm, and therefore she finds it very much hard to move or do something else other than laying eggs. A group of sterile female ants, though, perform the other tasks of defending the colony against outsiders, collecting foods, cleaning the nest and taking care of the queen and larvae etc. Males, on the other hand, appear on the surface only during the breeding season to mate with the queens, thereafter, they get killed by worker ants, as the colony has no place for nonproductive members.

Features

• Length: 1.6 mm
• Color: Shades from yellow to red with black spots on the abdomen.
• Size: 0.75-52 mm.
• Common colors: Red and black.
• Uncommon colors: Green and some tropical ants are blessed with metal bright.
• Species No.: +12,000.
Ants can be easily recognized with their antennae and the nod-like skeletons which form tiny waists. Ants build their highly organized colonies from devouring members found in small natural cavities. Each colony consists of millions of ants, and is mostly constituted of sterile wingless females that regroup as workers, soldiers and other specialized categories.

Ants Colony

Ants live in colonies and can build a whole city from different network of colonies or even an ant valley, as mentioned in the Holy Quran, like the city discovered by an American scientist in Pennsylvania, under the earth’s surface with a total area of 30 acres, including dozens of nests and houses connected by streets, roads and crosses to incredibly guide each colony member to its destination. Each colony is characterized by:
1. Ventilation door.
2. Guards room to keep strangers out.
3. Summer vacation site for female workers.
4. Foods storage.
5. Places for eating food.
6. Soldiers’ posts.
7. Royal room where the queen lays eggs.
8. Farming and milking aphids.
9. Places for eggs hatching.
10. Places for upbringing young ants.
11. A graveyard at the right to the winter Habitat.
12. The queen’s winter Habitat.

For some ant species, the colony’s depth may reach 5 m in Amazon Rainforests with a total area of 7 m where ants can create and build hundreds of rooms and tunnels by digging and removing about 40 tons outside.

Life Cycle

Most ants worldwide are female workers, and they live in colonies, with one queen for each to lay eggs.
The number of eggs the queen may lay at once differs from one species to another, ranging from hundreds to millions. African ants’ queen, for example, can lay 3-4 million eggs per month.
Ants are one of the most long living insects on earth; they are known to live from a few months to many years. The queen can live up to 20 years.
Males are exclusively dedicated to reproduction, and after mating with the queen, they die immediately due to the special scent produced by the queen to distinguish the colony. Ants are very social and can only live within groups, colonies or nests.

Collecting Foods

Ants have a special way of collecting, storing and preserving foods. When an ant fails to carry a huge amount of food in its mouth, it would rather use its rear legs and front arms to move and lift the collected food. Before storing seeds, the ant bites a part of each seed to prevent its regrowth and smooth the storing process. Some seeds, like Coriander, can, however, regrow after being broken into two parts, and in such case, the ant may part the coriander seed into 4 portions. Ants can also dry the wet seeds by exposing them to the sun and air. Pondering upon ants’ smart behavior, we find ourselves capable of nothing but to prostrating before our Creator, the All-Knowing, Who Has guided these small creatures to isolate the seed from water and moisture to prevent its regrowth.