What does an ant queen look like? Description and photo

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:47

For owners of a house or apartment, it becomes a real nuisance if an ant colony begins to develop within the walls of their home. At first, one or more individuals can be seen. But over time, the number of uninvited guests increases significantly. If you destroy insects that are found here and there on the owner's road, it will not work.

The queen ant becomes the reason for the rapid spread of pests in the house. It is from this person that the successful spread of the species around the apartment depends. To get rid of an ant colony in your home, you need to know what their queen looks like, as well as know a few features of her behavior.

Features of the ant queen

The queen ant (a photo of the insect is shown below) occupies the highest place in the hierarchy of these insects.

The duties and relationships of the queen with the whole clan are somewhat different for different types. But she enjoys special privileges with house (pharaoh) ants.

The uterus does not protect its place of deployment, it does not take part in the processes of food supply. She also does not build a dwelling, notdoes garbage collection. Its purpose is to ensure the continuous replenishment of its colony.

All other representatives of this large family fully respect the interests of the uterus. They create all the conditions so that she can freely replenish the colony with new individuals. This principle of behavior has become fundamental to the survival of this species and explains its distribution throughout the planet.

Appearance

What the ant queen looks like (the photo is shown below), should be considered in detail.

Recognizing her is very easy. It is significantly larger than the other ants that make up this colony.

The uterus has a large round belly. It has a darker color. Thin light stripes are visible on the abdomen. The abdomen is about 3-4 mm long. It is designed to lay eggs.

The Queen's large size makes her clumsy. It is less mobile than other ants. Also, this individual has a fairly developed thoracic region. It is wider than that of worker ants. This is due to the presence of small wings, which the young female possesses before the emergence of her own colony. The queen sheds her wings when a new clan is formed.

Features of reproduction

Studying the question of what the queen ant looks like, it is necessary to consider the features of their reproduction. In almost all species, a large number of heterosexual individuals emerge from pupae once a year. These males and females are capable of reproduction.

Mating takes place during the flight. If the female has been fertilized, she does not return to her anthill anymore. Such individuals scatter around the area in search of a suitable place to lay their first eggs. Further, working individuals appear from them.

It is after the summer that the uterus gnaws off its wings, which allows it to receive additional nutrients to continue its kind. This is how colonies of many ant species are born.

House ant colony

The queen ant has a more privileged position in the colony of domestic representatives of the species. However, with the advent of a large number of them, the attitude of worker ants towards them becomes somewhat dismissive. The uterus lives up to 15 years. She can lay more than 500,000 eggs in her lifetime.

Her environment is somewhat different from other clans. The largest colony that was recorded by scientists consisted of 340,000 worker ants. But in ordinary nests, there are up to 15 thousand individuals.

It should be noted that almost all colonies have female worker ants.

But in domestic individuals, males are also found in small numbers. But the rest of the community treats them badly.

In a pharaoh ant colony, which can be found within the walls of a house, only 10-15% of workers are busy searching for and getting food. All other members of the large family are in their lair and are engaged in the maintenance of the uterus. Some individuals take carefor offspring. So the visible part of this anthill is insignificant in comparison with its real size.

Difficulty identifying the uterus

The question of how to find an ant queen in domestic representatives of the species is rather complicated. The fact is that the process of reproduction in these insects is different from others. The female becomes able to give birth when she reaches a certain size. After mating occurs, the queen does not leave her colony. She stays here.

In a colony of domestic ants, due to this feature, there may be several hundred fertile queens. They peacefully coexist within the same colony, not showing aggression towards each other.

When the ants get crowded in their nest, they simply find a place next to the main colony. They keep in touch with her. Queens can move from one nest to another. This is already a super anthill. It is very difficult to destroy it. To do this, you need to find all the nests and their queens.

Division into classes

Even knowing what it looks like and how to get a queen ant, you can not cope with the destruction of the ant colony in your house on your own. Therefore, it is better to entrust such work to professionals.

In other types, the division into classes is quite simple. The uterus, laying eggs, marks them with special pheromones. These substances inhibit the sexual development of offspring. This is how workers appear.

When the colony becomes verylarge, the uterus will not have time to mark all the eggs. This is how individuals ready for fertilization begin to appear. This is a natural process of population regulation in other colonies.

In domestic ants, the uterus can be compared to a cash cow on a farm. The worker ants take care of her, but if she stops laying enough eggs, the queen can be killed. This is how natural selection works.

How to find a nest?

The question of how to catch a queen ant is complicated by the presence of a large number of fertile individuals. Therefore, if you want to get rid of the colony, you need to look for all the nests.

Ants form their colonies in humid and warm places. Favorite rooms in this regard for them are the kitchen and bathroom. It is also, most likely, a dark corner, inaccessible to others. Most often they are found in the channels for electrical wires, in the voids under the tiles, socket sockets, etc.

Sometimes the anthill is not in the apartment, but in the nearby area. For example, it can be interfloor overlappings. Searches can take a lot of time and effort. But you still need to pay attention to this issue. It is best to notice the direction in which the worker ants move away with the food bits. If no action is taken, the colony may grow so large that its functioning will be equated to a natural disaster.

How to deal with ants in the house?

The queen ant is the central person in the nest. She is fed with bits of food brought from outside. worker antsthey can also regurgitate food, giving it to their queen.

The ants that appear in the apartment will sooner or later move towards their colony with the food they have obtained. It is important to carefully monitor where they go. If they go through holes in the wall, you should cover these passages with silicone sealant.

If you are lucky enough to find the entire nest directly and destroy the queens in it, the rest of the ants leave the dangerous place for other feeding areas. If it was not possible to find a colony, you should put food with poison for worker ants, which will deliver them to their queens. This is how you can deal with the invasion.

Having found out what the ant uterus looks like, as well as the features of its behavior, you can cope with uninvited guests in your apartment. Action must be taken quickly or the scale of the disaster will be enormous.