The BugLady was out on the trail with a bunch of 3rd<\/sup>\u00a0graders one day, and they found an ant hill \u2013 a small, conical mound with a hole in the center.\u00a0When she asked the kids how that pile of dirt came to be there, one speculated that ants brought dirt in from the surrounding area to protect the entrance.\u00a0Yet another reminder that we all see things from a unique angle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 11-18-08:\u00a0<\/strong>The BugLady and the AntFamily have logged six [now seven-plus] decades of run-ins, which the ants invariably win (Lederhosen<\/em>\u00a0will work if you want to sit on thistles, but they won\u2019t save you if you sit on an ant hill, and that\u2019s the last thing the BugLady is going to say about that!).\u00a0Fire ants, which the BugLady encountered during a Texas litter pick-up, but which are not yet found in Wisconsin, will undoubtedly look her up when they get here (fire ants can run from their nest inside a discarded beer can, past the elbow of a litter-picker-upper\u2019s arm at warp speed, biting and stinging all the way up, and that\u2019s the last thing the BugLady is going to say about that, too!).\u00a0The BugLady does, however, admit to standing out in the hot, east Texas sun, enthralled with the solemn, single-file processions of leaf-cutter ants snaking around the edge of a parking lot.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Like bees, wasps, horntails and sawflies, ants are in the order Hymenoptera (\u201cmembranous wings\u201d).\u00a0Hymenopterans have been around for about 200 million years, and ants, which developed from wasps, for about 90 million years, give or take. They are most numerous and diverse in the tropics.\u00a0Elizabeth Lawlor, in\u00a0Discover Nature around the House, (an excellent series) says that E.O. Wilson found 43 species of ants living in a single tree in Peru (which is more than the total number of species in Great Britain), and that only three species live in the Arctic above the treeline.\u00a0They are considered by some to be at the pinnacle of insect evolution and to be the most numerous of all insects (and, it is said, if all the world\u2019s humans sat on one side of a cosmic teeter-totter and all the ants sat on the other, the humans\u2019 feet would be dangling).\u00a0There is a HUGE amount of information available about ants, and what follows is only a quick overview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although many hymenopterans are solitary, the order is famous for housing the social insects, and all\/nearly all species in the ant family are social.\u00a0Most colonies operate with a caste system that includes a queen (a fertile female that mates only once and then retires to lay eggs, read romance novels and eat chocolates for the rest of her life, which may span up to 15 years), workers (sterile, wingless females who care for the queen, eggs, and larvae, maintain and defend the colony, and forage for food), and males.\u00a0Nuptial flights in spring and fall mark the only time ants may be winged (and then, only the Royal ants); after mating the male dies, and the young queen bites\/scrapes off her wings and starts her own anthill.\u00a0She cares for the first crop of workers, feeding them saliva and eggs, until (Moms take note) they get old enough to care for her forevermore.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nests are generally (but not exclusively) excavated in the ground or in rotting trees, and some ants take advantage of the solar-heated microclimate that exists under a rock.\u00a0Other (larger) ant mounds are created when ants bring in materials from the surrounding area, forming a slightly domed mound and then tunnel through it – the domed shape facilitates heat absorption, and the temperature inside may be 15 to 20 degrees warmer than outside. Ants are active a good part of the year; the picture of the ant on the plum blossom was taken in early May and the group shot on the orange, in early November. In the winter, ants can migrate vertically, and live below the frost line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Each nest\/colony\/hive has an individual scent, a combination of chemical secretions and of the scent of the colony\u2019s nesting material; this allows its members to identify their sisters at home or away.\u00a0These chemicals also, according to Lawlor, \u201ccause the workers to respond and maintain cooperative and altruistic behavior.\u201d\u00a0When workers meet, they feel each other with their antennae and then feed each other a bit of food, which strengthens the bond of the colony.\u00a0Foraging ants may find their way to a food source and then back home by following both a chemical\/pheromone trail (rubbing your finger across a chemical trail causes the ants temporary confusion) or by visual landmarks, and an ant deposited off-trail is in trouble.\u00a0Each segment of an ant\u2019s antennae has a different sensory task; read Lawlor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n In T.H. White\u2019s terrific Arthurian tale, The Once and Future King, young Arthur\u2019s lessons include being turned by Merlin into a variety of animals, including an ant, and the ant-lessons are powerful and memorable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ants enroll in a wide variety of food plans, depending on their species.\u00a0They consume nectar and other plant juices, and honeydew \u201cmilked\u201d from herds of Homopterans like aphids and treehoppers. They gather seeds (ants disperse the seeds of many kinds of plants) and browse the oranges the BugLady puts out for the birds), and eat dead organic matter, decaying trees, and houses. Or, they may be predators, attacking small invertebrates.\u00a0Leafcutter ants mix pieces of leaf with their feces and make a garden in which they culture fungi to eat.\u00a0Stokes, in\u00a0A Guide to Observing Insect Lives,\u00a0has an interesting write-up of how a group of ants cooperates to carry home a large piece of food.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite their familiar presence on flowers, they are poor pollinators, because of their slippery exoskeletons and fastidious grooming habits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some species of ants can bite, and some species sting – the ovipositor, which workers don\u2019t use anyhow, has been modified into a stinger – and some do both.\u00a0Some also produce and spray formic acid or other chemicals, which act as irritants.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The BugLady met an instructor who claimed to be a connoisseur of ants.\u00a0He said that black ants are too bland; small, red ants are too spicy, and that ants that have a red head and thorax and a black abdomen (like the (possibly) Allegheny mound ant pictured here farming the tiny treehopper nymphs) are just right.\u00a0Native Americans in the desert southwest collected honey ants and used them as sweeteners, and ant larvae and pupae provide protein for humans in parts of the world.\u00a0Ants are also eaten by birds, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, fish and by other insects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Breaking news!\u00a0An abstract in a recent \u201cScience News<\/em>\u201d reports on a species of US ant that raids the nests of a smaller species and enslaves its young.\u00a0The slaves do the housework and care for the young of their mistress. BUT, some slave ants have evolved a behavioral resistance to this and were pictured destroying young in the nursery (and referred to as \u201ckiller nannies\u201d).\u00a0AND \u2013 this drama is playing out in the nest of the larger queen \u2013 IN AN ACORN!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Go out and watch some ants (but always know where your extremities are).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The BugLady<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n Howdy, BugFans, 2025: This episode is a Golden Oldie, first\/last posted in 2008.\u00a0Despite her feelings of ambivalence about ants, the BugLady continues to photograph and write about them.\u00a0See\u00a0https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/flying-ants\/,\u00a0https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/the-ants-of-cesa\/, and\u00a0https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/bug-of-the-week\/western-thatch-ant\/, and more.\u00a0For this rerun, the BugLady added a bunch of random …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38860,"featured_media":16255,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","uwm_wg_additional_authors":[]},"categories":[8],"tags":[928,927,127,614],"class_list":["post-16247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bug-of-the-week","tag-ant-food-sources","tag-ant-wars","tag-ants","tag-insects"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Ants](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ant-work11-7-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"dynamic](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ant-wars12-2-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Royal](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ant-royal19-3-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"ant](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/w-plum-ant-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"group](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ants-oranges-9-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Chemical](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ants-sap17-1rz-150x150.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"ant](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ants-aphids17-2-150x150.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"ants](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ants-milkweed20-2-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Ants](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ants-caterpillar20-1rz-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Ant](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ant-treehopper18-7-300x300.webp\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n![\"Fungus](\"https:\/\/uwm.edu\/field-station\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/380\/2025\/06\/ant-work11-5-300x300.webp\")
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