The ants go marching one by one hurrah?

Ants, what marvelous creatures...so small and insignificant, but you can't help but be facinated by the organization in their little colony. Soooo compliments of wikipedia I will share with all of you the interesting things I have learned about ants!

Crazy facts I bet you didnt know about ants:
• Some female ants do not need to mate sexually, some can reproduce through asexual parthenogenesis (which is a fancy way to talk about cloning) and of course, all of the offspring will be female.
• I have always been taught (a bugs life supports this) that there is a single mother queen ant, but depending on the species, there can be potentially, hundreds of fertile queens. (which just means more offspring...awesome)
• During the larvae stage ants have no legs but are capable of some minor movement, such as bending their head toward a food source when fed. During this stage, the level of care and nourishment the larvae receive will determine their eventual adult form. When resources are low, all larvae will develop into female worker ants; however, if the parent of a sexually reproducing colony has a plentiful supply of food, some of the larvae will receive better nourishment than others, and develop into winged, sexually mature female ants destined to leave the colony.
• Unlike other ants, young queens have a pair of wings. These are only used for the nuptial flight (mating flight), and are later detached either by the queen herself or chewed off by her worker ants. (not sure why you want to chew them off, wings can be very useful)
• The mating flights occur simultaneously in all ant nests of the particular species. The female "queen" ants will fly a long distance, during which they will mate with at least one winged male from another nest. After mating with the queen the male will die. Once mated, the "queen" will attempt to find a suitable area to start a colony and, once found, detach her wings.
• The term "queen" is often deceptive, as the queen ant has very little control over the colony as a whole. She has no known authority or decision-making control; instead her sole function is to reproduce


There is much more to the life of ants...but now it is time for me to make sense of my choice of topic...ants. (particularly queen ants) Well, you see, I cleaned the kitchen last night before I went to bed, it was spotless. Strangely enough, while we were sleeping that rare event among ants, the "nuptial flight" thing occured...in our KITCHEN! Yes, we woke up to hundereds of big winged ants dead on the kitchen table. What the....? And there were little worker ants all over the floor by the sliding door, it was like a big conspiracy! They were all in on this together! I know it's disgusting, and a little tramatizing to wake up with your kitchen table (remember, it's the place where you eat) covered in dead big ants...but I couldnt help but be intrigued. It reminded me of planet earth, the one where the bugs sit in hibernation, and dig their way out once every 13 years to mate and lay eggs under the soil again.






This brings us to our conclusion, yes, ants are gross and dirty and annoying...but as gross and dirty and annoying as they are, you have to admit, their society is insanely well organized. All the way down to the little worker ants, everyone has a role and knows exactly what they are doing at all times. (And for the record, we disinfected our table, no worries)