Bees feed on flowers; wasps hunt other insects; ants "feed on a whole variety of things," from flowers to dead animals, says University of Georgia entomologist Ken Ross. Morphology also differs: ...

More information: Louis Bell-Roberts et al, Larger colony sizes favoured the evolution of more worker castes in ants, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-024-02512-7 Provided by ...

Ants are common insects, but they have some unique capabilities—including their legendary communication skills that allow their colonies to function as superorganisms. Invasive ant species are ...

Despite their tiny size, ants are able to accomplish absolutely incredible feats. They can build amazingly intricate nests, farm fungus, herd aphids, and even waging full blown wars on other colonies.

The social parasitism that I address here is restricted to the ants that form mixed species nests and depend on labor provided by the host species workers. These nests typically have two or more ...

NARRATOR:'Inside their colony, the ants are very busy. Everyone has a job to do. If they don't do their job, then other things in the colony don't work properly. NARRATOR:'In a leafcutter colony ...

Ant nests (hills) can be broken up with a fork and treated with boiling or cold water or ant powder. Ant nests can exist for many years, with the worker ants excavating the nest, feeding the queen and ...

In a brief communication in May 1 Nature, Michael Greene and Deborah Gordon from Stanford University show that cuticular hydrocarbons, which differ according to task, are used by workers of the red ...