Ant Colony

An Ant Colony is an eusocial colony composed of ants.

• Context:
  • It can be a Brood Parasite Ant Colony (that takes other ants as captives).
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • a Termite Colony.
  • a Bee Colony.
• See: Eusocial, Hymenoptera, Convergent Evolution.

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References

2014

• (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ant_colony Retrieved:2014-4-21.
  • An ant colony is the basic family unit around which ants organize their lifecycle.^{[citation needed]} Ant colonies are eusocial, and are very much like those found in other social Hymenoptera, though the various groups of these developed sociality independently through convergent evolution.^{[citation needed]} The typical colony consists of one or more egg-laying queens, a large number of sterile females ("workers") and, seasonally, a large number of winged sexual males and females.^{[citation needed]} Periodically, swarms of the winged sexuals (known as alates) depart the nest in great nuptial flights. The males die shortly thereafter, along with most of the females.^{[citation needed]} A small percentage of the females survive to initiate new nests.

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