lives of ants

[...]... figure prominently in books and films The French writer Bernard Werber, for instance, is widely known for his best-selling Ants trilogy (The Empire of the Ants, The Day of the Ants, and The Revolution of the Ants) Ants now figure in a broad range of popular culture, from many works of science fiction, to novels, children’s books, comics, and video games The creatures are also to be found swarming across... abundance of fauna In a square kilometre of rain forest, for example, there are more species of ants than there are species of primates in the whole world Latin America boasts a very great range of ant species, as do sub-Saharan Africa and Asia The American entomologist Edward O Wilson and his German co¨ author Bert Holldobler say in Journey to the Ants that, in an area of eight hectares of virgin... a fair weight It actually amounts to about 10 per cent of the animal biomass, that is one-tenth of the total weight of all animals on the face of the Earth, though the percentage is higher in tropical forests Their total weight would be roughly the same as that of the whole human population 11 THE LIVES OF ANTS Family trees Like bees and wasps, ants belong to the order Hymenoptera, within which they... southern wood ants, are fond of honeydew, which is made of vegetable sap ingested then excreted by aphids Harvester ants eat seeds collected in the fields Ants of the genera Acromyrmex and Atta, among the most abundant in tropical America, go one better than that, by actually growing their own fungus, their staple diet, in humus or on fresh leaves, which they then cut off This review of the diversity of eating... perceptible; he says of them: ‘They are helots, whom Nature has burdened with all the most vexing cares of State Lest the pleasures of love should distract them from the purpose she has set for them, she has forbidden them the enjoyment of its sweets.’ Accordingly, his Essai sur l’histoire des fourmis de France (‘An Essay on the History of French Ants ) presents the republic of the ants as a place of inequalities,... enable ants to change not only their natural milieu but even the climate in which they live their lives Whereas an insect of a solitary kind may be able to dig a simple hole in the ground to serve as a nest, groups of worker ants manage to construct commodious and comfortable habitats which are perfectly adapted to the environment Just think of the mound-shaped ants nests made by wood ants The shape of. .. have to fall back on an estimate of a world population of ten million billions This figure, though only a rough approximation, is nonetheless staggering; and there can be no doubt that the population of ants far outnumbers that of humans Ants don’t just outnumber us, they come close to outweighing us too Tiny as they are, ten million billions of them, at an average weight of three milligrams per ant, add... Following in the footsteps of these illustrious predecessors, the entomologists of our own day, first and foremost the myrmecologists (the name now given to ant specialists), are enthusiastic investigators of the lives and ways of these social insects Their research leads them into a world that is rich and full of surprises, and one that, even after decades of observation, is still full of unsolved mysteries... differences of size, the record in this respect going to Pheidologeton diversus of Asia: the head of the smallest worker is exactly ten times smaller than the head of the largest This may not seem much of a disparity; but images taken with a scanning electron microscope can give a different perspective by showing one of the tiniest workers perched on the head of her larger sister, reminiscent of a beetle... silver ants There is no such thing as uniformity among ants From the underworld to the top of the world This diversity of ants appearance and morphology is matched by a wide variation in their ways of life and habitats There are huge disparities in their housing arrangements, as the French ento´ mologist Pierre-Andre Latreille observed as long ago as the late eighteenth century: ‘The dwellings of ants . his best-selling Ants trilogy (The Empire of the Ants, T he Day of the Ants, and The Revolution of the Ants) . Ants now figure in a broad range of popular culture, from many works of science fiction,. genomics of behaviour 202 Chapter 29 So what’s so special about the genome of fir e ants? 208 CONTENTS viii Part VIII High-tech Ants 215 Chapter 30 Computer-modelling behaviour 217 Chapter 31 Of ants. puberty had to demonstrate that he was worthy of adult status by wearing a sling full of fire ants round his torso or tied to his back, thus THE LIVES OF ANTS 2 proving he had the courage and endurance