Ants and About them!

[onlyricky]

Hello all! Today I've Discover many many Ants nest, and all of them have these FLYING ants!
So As here are alot of experts and I'm still a begginer, I'd like someone to answer me these questions


so here are they:
1. Why Ants Have also these kind of Flying Ants? I mean they all work together, then the ants fly away, do they back? It seems not! so why do they have them? Do they have any special ''paper'' in the nest?
2. It seems this only happens in these black ants! i've seen some with red ''head'' ants, and they dont own these kinds! also some bigger ants also dont have these kind!


thank you
This is just a coriousity ^^

[paul m]

I think that you'll find most species of ants have these winged forms. The ones with wings are sexuals - males (the small ones) and females (queens, the large ones).

To get back to the beginning colonies of most ant species consist of a queen which lays eggs, these eggs go through the usual stages (larvae, pupa) before eventually turning into workers (non-sexual females) - they are all virtually identical sisters.

If there is a need to form a new colony, some species (such as our common black ant, Lasius niger) will take to flight. In late spring/early summer, the queen starts to produce sexual offspring - these include males and are winged. On a sunny summer's day these winged individuals emerge from the colony and fly off (often not very far but it may be considerable distances). When they land (which is perhaps a bit of a random business) they discard their wings. The males search for a queen; they mate; the male dies and the queen digs into the ground to start a new colony.

There is a lot of variation in this behaviour between the different ant species.

[paul m]

Here are some from my garden - with queens (I could see no males - hopefully they'll be flying from another colony). You can also see the larvae to the left which are fed by the workers, grow and pupate (pupae on the right). These are often wrongly called "ants' eggs".

[Beverly Stayart]

Thanks for posting these interesting photos of winged ants.