Ants are common social insects. There are thousands of species of ants found all over the world. Ants range in colour from yellow to brown to red to black. Ants exhibit complex behaviour; some ants build intricate nests, some are fierce warriors, some collect and store seeds (harvester ants), some capture slaves, and some farm fungi (leaf-cutter ants).

Some ants have a stinger and some can even inject poisonous acid from the stinger. The stinger is at the tip of the abdomen, the rear body segment. They can also bite using their jaws.

Building colonies:

Ants always live in colonies (a colony is a group of related ants); each ant colony consists of queen, workers, soldiers and males. The queen begins her life with wings, which she uses while mating. She then loses her wings and spends her life laying eggs. Workers are the many non-reproducing, wingless female worker ants who are the daughters of the queen. These workers collect food and feed members of the colony, defend the colony, and enlarge the nest. Most of the ants in a colony are workers. Soldiers are large workers (sterile females) who defend the colony and often raid other colonies, capturing slaves. Males are small ants that have wings. They fly from the colony to mate with a queen. They die soon afterwards.

Hunting style:

Ants are sensitive to the smell of sweet foods. Body fluids of caterpillars, the honey of flowers and sugar are carried by ants after sucking them into the crop. A small caterpillar is carried by holding it with the mandible. A large caterpillar is carried to the nest by dragging it or cutting it into small pieces. When an ant finds a large piece of food, it returns to the nest and collects its fellow workers. On the way back home, it leaves a trail of odours as landmarks, so that it can find its way precisely to the place where it had earlier located the food. Food such as cookies is carried to the nest after softening it with saliva or biting off a piece.

Favourite food:

The favourite food of ants varies according to their species. Sweet foods are very important for worker ants as sources of energy for outputting power and the protein of insect bodies is an important material for building up the ant’s body. In order to raise larvae, the protein of caterpillar body is essential.

Young ones:

Ants lays eggs in an egg-laying chamber with no exits. The mother creeps under a stone or wood to make the initial nest. When a chamber with a size permitting her to turn around is formed, the entrance is closed with soil. She then lays about one egg every day.

The egg changes to a larva and further to a pupa after spinning a cocoon. The larva casts off the skin inside the cocoon and turns into an ant-shaped pupa. The mother takes care of the larvae and cocoons containing pupae.

Their home:

Ants make a nest in the soil or inside a decayed tree. A nest can be as deep as four metres in the soil. Ant larvae can survive and grow even in winter, because the temperature is almost the same all the year-long at that depth. The nest is comfortable because it is cool in summer and warm in winter. In cold places, only those ants that can make a nest in the soil, in a stump or beneath the bark of a fallen tree can survive. In warm places, ant species that make a nest beneath the bark of a living tree or inside a decayed branch can also be seen.

The entire life cycle usually lasts from 6-10 weeks. Some queens can live over 15 years, and some workers can live for up to seven years.