This week's Ants Canada video spotlights a new and unique colony of ants. The are known as bullet ants. They are a very large species that have small colonies of a few hundred workers. They are a hunting species and are equipped with stingers and an effective toxin. The hunt individually, and drag their prey back to the nest.
The interesting part of these ants is that they have a way to replace a dead queen. In most ant colonies, when the queen dies, the colony dies because only the queen can lay eggs to replenish the work force. The bullet ants have an interesting solution to this problem. Each larvae hatched has the ability to become a queen. They have two small buds on their sides that allow them to become fertile and then mate and lay eggs. So the current acting queen has to inspect all newborns and bite off these buds. When the buds are removed, the baby ant becomes infertile and loyal to the current queen. So when the queen dies, the newborns keep their buds and fight it out for dominance. The winner secretes a pheromone that attracts male ants and she mates and become the reigning queen. So these colonies can survive the death of any queen.
Interesting stuff, enjoy the video:
My Kryptonia account is @ianstevenson
Very interesting information. I wrote a post about ants this week too, but mine was about their eggs and we ate them!
I'm coming to you from @kyrptonia with the same user name.
Upvoted by rubelynmacion of krypto
Really interesting blog, I was amazed that they can make new queens. Thanks for the info. Kryptonia@lordzugg
Thank you joe,@deanolad krpytonia.io
great article. kryptonia: bojak_cates
duplicate comment :(
#TIMOZMAN
he's a schill. he started doing a 'blog' after I called him out for doing nothing but commenting on flatearth, attacking @earthcustodian.
then he started doing this 'blog' ... lol
don't let him make you mad, that is his goal, we don't think as clearly when we are mad.
peace brother, thanks for your contributions.
thanks
At least I write about something that is real...lol.