Why ants 'dominate' the world

Ants are always the first uninvited guests to appear after outdoor parties. Wherever you are, you can meet them. Rather than being annoyed, it is better to find out why ants can live almost anywhere on the planet.

The secrets that help ants "dominate" the world

This world does not always belong to ants. Scientists believe that ants today evolved about 120 million years ago. But fossil evidence suggests that, at that stage, ants are not as common insects as they are today. It was not until 60 million years later, when some species adapted to the new habitat - where flowering plants appeared - by diversifying food sources, ants began to enter the glorious period. Since then, the ecological dominance of ants has been maintained until now.

According to calculations by scientists, there are currently about 20,000 ant species crawling on the planet's surface. People know more than 11,000 species, but that also accounts for at least 1/3 of the total number of insect species in the world. According to a recent study, the total number of ants in Brazil's Amazon forest is four times larger than the total number of mammal, poultry, reptile and amphibian species in the same area.

Ants Pogonomyrmex californicus (Photo: Livescience)

Everyone knows ants

They dominate because they can adapt to the environment in many different ways.

Ants vary from shape to environment. There are species only 1 mm long, like Oligomyrmex atomus , but also species up to 38 mm long, like Dinoponera . Their bodies can be yellow, red or black. They are capable of living in deserts, tropical forests and swamps - anywhere except the coldest and highest places on the planet.

" Almost every human language has a word about ant, " said Philip Ward, an entomologist at the University of California (USA). " Ants are a common concept. But that's not true for many other species ."

Diverse behavior

The food of many ants is flowering plants - which are rich in carbohydrate compounds. Some wood-ant ants build solid nest around tree roots to prevent other insects and protect their food supply.

Ants live in hot, dry areas dealing with drought by storing food.Pogonomyrmex californicus ants pick up seeds that build huge underground food stores. Ants eat honey using their own bodies to store honey.

Some ants specialize in robbing other people's food. Thick antennas on the heads of soldiers were used in fighting. Odontomachus, a large and strong jaw, can bite so quickly that you can hear the noise coming out when its two teeth collide. Some other species specialize in stealing larvae from the next nest. The food of Amblyopone oregonensis - also known as the " vampire " ant - is the nutrient in the prey.

Oligomyrmex atomus ants (Photo: Livescience)

The ants do everything

An ant nest with princess ants, worker ants and soldier ants. Each animal has tools and skills that are appropriate for the assigned work. In each species, the division of labor between individuals depends on the age and gender of each animal.

Those who are responsible for rearing larvae and working outside the nest tend to be younger, while protecting the nest and invading other nests is often the older ones. Just like other living insects, female ants take on everything. Male ants have only one task to spread genes through mating behavior.

"It is possible to treat male ants as missiles filled with sperm," said Alex Wild, an entomologist at the University of Arizona.

Ants are highly social animals , but some species have developed into complex societies, while many others are no different from their ancestors tens of millions of years ago. Some species know how to prey on herds, Australian ants in Australia only know to hunt separately and use big eyes to attack prey, not knowing to use toxic chemicals like many other species.

"Their group is small. There are not many morphological differences between queen and worker ants , " Wild said of the dog ants. "They do not develop many characteristics of modern ants."

Amblyopone oregonensis is a species that absorbs nutrients in the prey.(Photo: Livescience)

Effective communication system

Unlike bees or some other social species, most ants do not have wings and have developed a chemical " warehouse " to support ground-based communication.

"Lack of wings makes the search for food limited , " Ward said. "They have to pick up food on the ground, so communication on the ground is very important."

Ants use chemicals to date, alert and indicate the location of food. When you want to be fertilized, the gods of some species will climb to a high point, point their tails into the air and release a chemical that attracts the attention of the males.

Ants also secrete chemicals from their mouths to alert each other if something goes wrong with their nest.

With the male ant in the Brachymyrmex obscurior, its life will end after fertilizing the larger female several times.(Photo: Livesience)

"That chemical signals knowledge that they must run out , " Wild said. "It is a command to steal larvae and run in underground tunnels to be safe. Those responsible for protecting the nest start running around the nest, baring their teeth and ready to bite, burn everything. they met ".

People can smell the chemicals that ants produce. The bright yellow ants, living in North America, secrete a chemical that smells like orange and lemon peels. However, not all chemicals that ants produce have a pleasant smell.Pheidole species often release chemicals with a bad smell when they fall into an emergency situation.

"The success of ants stems from how they use herd behavior to maximize the amount of food that can be earned. Ants have developed many complex communication systems so that they can communicate with each other. "That's very fast. That's why you always meet tens of thousands of ants on a picnic," Wild said.

The species Pheidole desertorum secretes chemicals with a foul odor when in danger.(Photo: Livescience)