Honeypot ant
Honeypot ants, also called honey ants, are
Behavior
Many insects, notably honey bees and some wasps, collect and store liquid for use at a later date. However, these insects store their food within their nest or in combs. Honey ants are unique in using their own bodies as living storage, used later by their fellow ants when food is otherwise scarce. When the liquid stored inside a honeypot ant is needed, the worker ants stroke the antennae of the honeypot ant, causing the honeypot ant to regurgitate the stored liquid from its crop.[4][5]
Anatomy
The
Ecology
Myrmecocystus nests are found in a variety of arid or semiarid environments. Some species live in extremely hot deserts, others reside in transitional habitats, and still other species can be found in woodlands which are somewhat cool but still very dry for a large part of the year. For instance, the well-studied Myrmecocystus mexicanus resides in the arid and semiarid habitats of the southwestern United States. Sterile workers in this species act as plerergates or repletes during times of food scarcity. When the plerergates are fully engorged, they become immobile and hang from the ceilings of the underground nests. Other workers drain them of their liquid food stores to feed the rest of the colony. Plerergates can live anywhere in the nest, but in the wild, they are found deep underground, unable to move, swollen to the size of grapes.[7]
In Camponotus inflatus in Australia, repletes formed 49% (516 ants) of a colony of 1063 ants, and 46% (1835 ants) of a colony of 4019 ants. The smaller colony contained six wingless queens. The larger colony had 66 chambers containing repletes, with a maximum of 191 repletes in a chamber. The largest replete was 15 millimetres long and had a mass of 1.4 grams. The nest had a maximum depth of 1.7 metres, and tunnels stretched 2.4 metres from the nest entrance. The workers went out foraging during daylight to collect nectar from
Genera
Honeypot food storage has been adopted in several seasonally active ant genera:[9]
- Camponotus of Australia[9]
- Cataglyphis of North Africa[9]
- Leptomyrmex of Melanesia[9]
- Melophorus of Australia[9]
- Myrmecocystus of North America.[9][10]
- Plagiolepis of South Africa [citation needed]
- Prenolepis of North America[9]
In human culture
Honeypot ants such as
See also
References
- ^ "Replete". Antbase. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
- ^ McCook, Henry C. (1882). The Honey and Occident Ants.
- ^ McCook, Henry C. (1907). Nature's craftsmen; popular studies of ants and other insects. Harper and Brothers. pp. 96–111.
- ^ . (subscription required)
- ^ "Honey Ant Adaptations". National Geographic. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
- ISBN 978-1-4051-4457-5.
- JSTOR 4448321.
- ^ Conway, John R. (June 1991). "The biology and aboriginal use of the honeypot ant, 'Camponotus inflatus' Lubbock, in Northern Territory, Australia". Australian Entomologist. 18 (2): 49–56.
- ^ .
- ^ Morgan, R. Biology, husbandry and display of the diurnal honey ant Myrmecocystus mendax Wheeler (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) Archived 2010-07-17 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Use of Insects by Australian Aborigines". Insects.org. 2011. Archived from the original on 25 August 2012. Retrieved 21 May 2016.
- ^ "Papunya Tula art movement of the Western Desert". Australian Government. Archived from the original on 8 August 2016. Retrieved 30 July 2016.
External links
- Media related to Honeypot ants at Wikimedia Commons
- Empire of the Desert Ants at naturedocumentaries.org Retrieved 16 July 2023