Ants : Colony :: ___ : Plague (2024)

FAQs

What do you call a colony of ants? ›

A group of ants is called a colony, or sometimes an army. Ants are a social insect, and live in large groups that have one 'queen' ant, and many 'worker' ants that are responsible for foraging for food, as well as caring for the queen and her offspring.

Ant Colony Organizational Terminology

Polygyny and pleometrosis both describe the establishment of an ant colony under multiple egg-laying queens. Oligogyny is a specific type of polygyny where the multiple egg-laying queens remain far apart from one another within the nest.

A typical colony contains an egg-laying queen and many adult workers together with their brood (eggs, larvae and pupae). Workers are by far the most numerous individuals in the nest. They are responsible for nest construction and maintenance, foraging, tending the brood and queen, and nest defence.

A group of ants is called a colony when referring to the ants in their nest. A colony usually resides in a network of underground tunnels with a chamber at the centre for the queen.

Although 'colony' is a collective noun, 'ants' is only a plural noun. Hence option D is incorrect as well. Pick out the collective noun(s) from the following sentence. There is a colony of ants in the backyard.

Another name is "formicary", which derives from the Medieval Latin word formīcārium. The word also derives from formica. "Ant nests" are the physical spaces in which the ants live. These can be underground, in trees, under rocks, or even inside a single acorn.

Members of the worker, and reproductive castes (queen and reproductive males) have separate roles to fulfill in the hierarchy of an ant colony: Queens head the colonies and lay thousands of eggs to ensure the nest's survival. They are typically larger than workers.

“Pissant.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pissant.

What is it called when an ant colony has multiple queens? ›

Ant species that have more than one queen in their nests are called polygyne. Colonies with only one egg-laying queen are known as monogyne. Queen ants and males are part of the reproductive castes.

The queen ant, as her name suggests, is both the founder and leader of the colony. Her primary function is to populate the colony by laying thousands of eggs. The queen's chambers are located deep within the ant colony as a protection against predators.

It is common among social insects like bees, termites and ants, which need to remove corpses to prevent the spread of pathogens. Ant colonies have specialised undertakers for the task. They usually carry their dead to a sort of graveyard or take them to a dedicated tomb within the nest.

Ant colonies come in literally all shapes and sizes. A few species live in colonies of only a few dozen ants; however, the average ant colony contains thousands of individual ants. Smaller colonies live in natural crevices or openings while larger colonies create vast nests and forage for supplies and food.

Every ant colony has one or more queens. Even though the worker ants are female, the queen is the only ant that can lay eggs. They have highly evolved social systems with three different castes ~ queens, males, and workers. The workers are female, but cannot reproduce.

Ants are social insects which live in colonies

The colony, also called a formicary, is made up of one or more egg-laying queens and a large amount of female “worker” ants who tend to her, build and maintain the nest, forage for food and and care for the young.

Most ant species are social insects, living in large cooperative groups called colonies. Two or more generations may overlap in a colony. These ant colonies are divided into three castes — males, workers and queens — and each caste performs certain tasks.

A formicarium ( pl. : formicaria or formicariums) or ant farm is a vivarium which is designed primarily for the study of ant colonies and how ants behave and for the enjoyment of ants as pets.

Ants use pheromone trails to communicate within their colonies. Individual ants secrete pheromones, and other ants in their colonies have sensory organs that pick up the pheromone smell. The scouting ants leave a pheromone trail toward a food source so other ants can find nourishment, too.