Ant Colony
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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.
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.