Some similarities between ants and people we don't know yet

Ant, the scientific name is Formicidae, is an insect family of the Membrane wing. The species in this family are highly social, capable of living into large corporations with millions of animals, distributed over a large area. Ant groups are sometimes considered super-agencies because they act as a single entity, extremely united. The article introduces some interesting things you may not know about this small but extremely crowded animal.

>>>Discover the key to the social status of ants

1. Large volume and overwhelming quantity

One thing you can hardly believe: The total biomass of all ants on earth is equivalent to the total biomass of human beings.

We are so much bigger. Of course it is. But we are completely overwhelmed in quantity. On average, the current world population is about 7-8 billion people. The number of ants is about 10 million, with more than 12,000 ant species known to exist, across continents, except Antarctica.

Thus, each of us must compare with about 1.5 million ants. Each of us averages 70kg. Calculate average, every 150 ants weigh about 7g.

2. The extraordinary strength from each member and from community solidarity

We often hear strange stories of Vietnam such as using the teeth to pull the train head or pulling the car a few hundred meters. But it's pulling on the horizontal, which means only winning friction on the wheels. Someone could lift the Huyndai up high or just lift another person for several kilometers, but it was enough to become a leader. But small ants can do more than that. If weight is calculated, ants are able to carry an object that weighs 50 times the body weight, and travels for a very long time without fatigue. Corresponding to this, you can lift an elephant up above the head, and go all the way for a few dozen kilometers.

And ant is a species that acts as a herd and has a complex social structure. So there's nothing when an ant colony can carry an elephant.

The real power of an ant, lies in its small size. To explain this, it is necessary to understand some basic measurements of size, mass, and strength. Muscle strength is proportional to the aspect of muscle. The area is a two-dimensional measurement, and is proportional to the square of long dimensions. Thus, strength is proportional to a quantity of area (area), and that is proportional to the square of the long dimension. The weight / weight of an object / animal is proportional to its long size cube. When an animal has a larger size, the smaller the ratio of strength / mass and vice versa. That explains why ants are really athletes in nature.

3. A skilled farmer

Ants have started 'farming' from about 50 million years ago, that is, even when people first think about farming. They know how to cut leaves, build nests, grow crops, raise animals . Enough. Most of them do this by instinct (meaning they don't have to think or practice doing these things to do it). And in another way we still understand, this is a symbiotic relationship between species in nature. So what do ants plant and what do they raise?

Livestock ants

Looking for children? The most common answer is aphid (aphids, aphids .). Bed bugs, often sucking sap, and secrete bile that ants like to eat. Ants raise aphids to get bile like people raise cows to get milk. On the contrary, they protect aphids from the natural enemies (cow bees or coconut beetles .), and they can also remove bugs from one place to another.

Ants cultivate

A good example is the Cheye ant (leaf-biting ant) ​​in the tropical Brazilian jungle. At night, healthy animals are responsible for cutting leaves. Others are tasked with shearing the cut leaves into smaller pieces, to move back to the nest.

In the team, some others specialized in the technical part will crush the crushed leaves, release saliva to mix well, and then transplant on the same mushroom mycelia still stored. After a while, mushrooms grow and it is the technical ants that harvest the mushrooms before they spread, dividing the whole herd. One thing in particular is that their mushroom fields inadvertently have a quite favorable condition. There, the leaves are fermented, so the temperature fluctuates around 25 degrees and the humidity is about 55-60%.

Surprisingly, they also know how to fertilize (saliva, plenty of nutrients), bite off the inedible parts of the fungus, and pick out hyphae for storage in the next season.

Ants protect trees

Some ants live in symbiosis with the plants they nest. They protect some species of bile, or plants that make room for living. A typical example is acacia. Over thousands of years, this thorny shrub has become a source of food and shelter for aggressive ants to protect trees from animals that want to eat acacia leaves. This is a symbiotic relationship that benefits both acacia and ants.

Scientists while conducting research on the decline in the number of large animals in Africa wondered what would happen if these animals did not eat acacia leaves. That's why they fenced some acacia trees to prevent elephants, giraffes and other animals from approaching. Surprisingly, after a few years the fenced trees looked sick and grew slower than their unconnected relatives. It turns out that when there are no animals eating leaves disturbed, acacia does not bother to pay attention to ants. They secrete less nectar and grow less protruding spines for ants to shelter. As a result, the bodyguards will destroy the trees replaced by other insects that perforate the bark.

4. Social structure of an extremely tight opinion group

Each colony of ants usually has about 100,000 members, of which there is only one head, called the queen. Princess ants are the largest in size, averaging 6 centimeters (2.4 in) with a distance of 15 centimeters (5.9 in). Princess ant is the female ant, also the mother of other ants. The queen lived in the princess room in the middle of the nest, laying eggs for life. Throughout life, queen ants can lay up to tens of thousands of eggs. These eggs will later be "members" of the team, including worker ants (the most crowded force), male ants and even young queen ants (to later build new nests).

Male ants are the smallest size in the nest, have wings, and only have the task of eating and "stacking" with the queen to maintain the race. When mating is finished, the male dies, the wings of the males fall off and their muscular part is the life sustaining food for the children to produce the first worker ants.

The most crowded component, also the main labor force of the ant nest is worker ants. Their job is to take care of the queen, hatch the eggs, transfer the eggs, raise the ants, find food, dig the earth to build the nest, guard the nest (ant soldiers - a special type of worker ants) . All These worker ants are all ants but they cannot reproduce because their sex structure is not fully developed. The ants in each nest distinguish from the other species of the same nest by smell.

Some worker ants are recruited, trained to become soldiers, tasked to guard the gate and protect the nest. There is a special little known thing about the soldiers using their heads, plugging in the entrance to the nest and preventing all illegal intruders. Their heads stick out of the entrances like a cork, when other workers come back, want to enter the nest, they will have to touch and head the soldiers. In some form of communication, the soldiers know that this is a member of the team, and open the gate to the worker ants. When an enemy invades or attacks the nest, they concentrate and help protect the nest by biting and injecting (the secretive nature is fomic acid) into the enemy. Some species use their teeth to chase other ants from their nest.

Ants eat a variety of foods. Some eat seeds, hunt other animals and also eat mushrooms . but most of them like sweets. Ants find prey everywhere, sometimes taken from other groups. They bring back to the nest and do the common good and enjoy.

In addition to such clear relationships, job division and finished products in the team, there are also competitive, war or cooperative relationships among teams in a species that are somewhat discussed below. here.

5. Translate and fight

The slave owner (Protomognathus americanus) in the US often raises the nest of a neighboring ant species (Temnothorax longispinosus) , kills mature individuals and captures other young ants as slaves. And the slave life of the T.longispinosus ants began with a role similar to 'ohs' in human society.

They fed the slave owners to eat. The upper jaw of the slave owner is very strong and sharp like a needle, a sharp weapon in looting and occupying other ant nests. But this weapon made them unable to feed themselves, thanks to the slave ants feeding them. In addition, slave ants help find slaves to build nests, feed, raise small children, clean up the nest, and even help the master to loot other ants. These slave ants are exploited badly, and life is usually only about 2 months.

The slave ants fed the slave owners to eat

One thing in particular is that the brave ants never rob ants from other nests, but only stealing larvae. Scientists believe that, because they are afraid of robbing and oppressing large ants, they will seek to escape or fight off the owner. While small ants, too weak and too small to protest, either they did not know they were robbed but thought that brave ants were their innate bosses.

However, recently, researcher Susanne Foitzik from Johannes Gutenberg University (Germany) said that there have been revolts among slave ants. The above announcement stems from the research results that the rate of larvae survivors is greatly reduced under the 'hand' to take care of the slaves. Typically, P. americanus larvae have an 85% chance of survival. However, this rate drops sharply when slave ants take care of larvae. Specifically 27% in ants in West Virginia (USA), 49% in New York and 58% in Ohio.

Perhaps, initially, slave ants were not aware of the larvae belonging to another species. However, when the larvae develop into nymphs, 'nanny' ants have discovered another species based on the epidermal signs, and become hostile to them. The enslave ants either neglected the "slave "'s children or attacked the nymphs directly, often " tearing, braking " them. These rebellious actions, which can reduce the power of the P. americanus ant community, prevent them from exploiting other ant nests and species of Temnothorax longispinosus.

Only a few strokes, it is enough to imagine a species that is already very familiar in everyday life, which you may not pay much attention to. There are many other interesting things surrounding ants hoping to be transmitted to readers in the nearest time.