#MiteMonday: Did you know? Legally, you can take as many photos of ants farming ridiculously mite-infested aphids as you want. No one can stop you.
#DailyMitePic #Mitestodon #arachnids #mites #ants #aphids #Acari #parasitism #Parasitengona #Hemiptera #Aphididae #Hymenoptera #Formicidae
Kid question: how does each ant know what to do?
This is a really great question and we only know some parts of the answers. Ants choose tasks based on what they are "good at" ... their age, and what the colony seems to need most.
So if there is not much food more ants go foraging. If there are lots of brood that need care more ants to that... etc.
That said, older ants tend to take on more dangerous jobs, further from the nest, younger ants stay home more.
And in species with ants of different casts, larger ants will do different tasks from smaller ants.
BUT, let's say that the brood need to be cared for, but the only ants around are huge soldiers. The big ants will step up and do the brood care, since getting what must be done for the colony done is always the main goal.
But if there were nurse ants around the soldiers would go patrol.
How do the ants know how to do these jobs? Some of it is instinct, but they also learn.
Ants use pheromones, sounds they make by tapping their gaster on surfaces, frantic dancing around, and literally physically dragging other ants over, to get their sisters to help them with a task if they can't do it on their own.
An ant in distress because she can't move a large food item back to the nest will, depending on her species either lay a trail, or simply run up to her sisters and pull them along until they follow her and help.
Any ant can decide to do this.
You can try something like this to get your friends to remember to vote on election day, or to get them to show up to the community garden meeting. It works on people too!
neville park
Kyle Memoir 🍉🐧
myrmepropagandist
Amy
Michael Gemar