1) Most ants live in hierarchical (ants ranked one above another) colonies with a single egg-laying queen, although some ant species will have multiple queens. The male ant’s entire job is mating, and female workers on the other hand, well they do everything else.
- Ants are actually very important arthropods, as they help to remove and recycle food waste that we drop in our day to day lives.
3) Did you know that in Columbia and Venezuela a species of ant, the big-bottomed ant, is on the menu at many restaurants, fertilized queens are served up brined and toasted. The ants are also thought to be an aphrodisiac (love drug that increases libido).
4) In some countries, medicinal oil containing crushed weaver ants is used to treat swollen joints and septic skin.
5) Formic acid, produced by fire ants, is a natural antimicrobial (kills microorganisms and stops their growth) and is also used in laundry detergents and hand soaps.
6) Some species of ants will steal other ants young and force them to work in their colony, and sometimes these slaves will revolt and attack their overlords or escape for freedom.
7) Dracula ants and the queens of one Stigmatomma ant species actually drink the blood of their own larvae, but stop short of actually killing them.
8) Odorous house ants, of which we have in Delta, give off a slightly funky lemon coconutty odor when crushed.
9) Most ants will bring their dying or dead workers (sisters) back to their colony only to kick them back out.
10) Some tribes in South America believe that when they die that they are reincarnated as ants.
11) Tree-dwelling Melissotarsus ants grow their middle legs upward to help navigate tunnels in their nests and they also can spin silk used to seal their tunnels.
12) Trap-jaw ants can jump forward but more impressively catapult themselves backwards, 100 times the length of their body merely by snapping their spring-loaded jaws.
13) Argentine ants have formed super colonies interconnected between continents around the world. One such colony was found to be 4,000 kilometers long with millions of queens and over 10 billion worker ants.
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gogreenpestcontrol.ca Ladner Tsawwassen Delta B.C. Randy Bilesky BsF CPA