Most of you know them as annoying occupant of their garden. But they are beautiful and also powerful insects. But most important they are very smart.
You don't belive me? I will show you!
Acutally I lied. They are not smart. Not alone. But in their colony they have a swarm intelligence. Every single ant fulfills a specific task and as a whole they do amazing, intelligent work!
Some species grow their own mushrooms! They are used for feeding the colony. The mushrooms are very complex to grow, they need to be taken care of the whole day!
To grow it they take leaves and cut them smaller and smaller. In the end they chew an substratum out of the pieces (shown in the picture). This substratum is like a sponge. The acutal mushroom is growing like the molds on bread for example. But there is way more work to do. They always bite the strings of, so the mushroom builds a bolbous thickening with a high protein content. This symbiosis already has gone so far, that they cold not live without each other anymore! The ants would be lacking food and the mushrooms need the bacteria from the ants. Those are destroying the mold that could grow on the mushroom itself. Yeah a molding mold.
And some of them hold their own insects! They offer insects like aphids protection for their honeydew. This is a special type of symbiosis called trophobiosis. But they are not just looking for them so they don't get eaten. They also bring them in their nest in the winter and protect their larvae. If it swims away after heavy rain, they go out and collect them! It is kind of more than just protection money.
And of course they are awesome architects! They don't dig random tunnels and chambers. They have special chambers for special purposes. Like for garbage, food, mushrooms, larvae and of course the queen. Also they think of a good circulation so the garbage doesn't mold.
They can dig up to 8 meters deep and in 6 years one single colony is able to dig 1.900 chambers. Therefore they carry 40 metric tons (88184,9 lbs) to the surface.
Also they are incredible strong as colony. Army ants hunt as whole colony and build fronts from 14 to 20 meters. Together they can even catch small birds, marmmals and snakes!
I hope you liked this small introduction about ants. I will gladly post more ant post if so!
If you have any questions let me know in the comments. :)
