Friday, August 19, 2011

Ants - life underwater | BBC wildlife




Do you know that:

Ants started farming long before human beings.

Ants are capable of carrying objects 50 times their own body weight with their mandibles.

Around 700,000 members can be found in a typical Ant colony of Army ants.


Sometimes soldier ants use their heads to plug the entrances to their nests and keep intruders from gaining access.

Ants lived alongside the dinosaurs over 100 million years ago.

Certain ant species defend plants in exchange for food and shelter.


Every ant has two stomachs. In the first one it stores food for itself and in the second it stores food that is to be shared with other ants.

The total biomass of all the ants on Earth is roughly equal to the total biomass of all the people on Earth.

The ants have very strong legs. They help them to run very quickly.

Ants sometimes herd or tend to insects of other species, like aphids or leafhoppers.

The common Black Ants and Wood Ants have no sting, but they can squirt a spray of formic acid.

Ants are capable of enslaving other ants, keeping them captive and making them do work for the colony.


The average life expectancy of an ant is 45-60 days.

Some ants form "super-colonies,". These are massive communities of ants that can stretch for thousands of miles.

If a worker ant has found a good source for food, it leaves a trail of scent. The other ants follow those scent trails laid by scout ants to gather food.

At night the worker ants move the eggs and larvae deep into the nest to protect them from cold.

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