Ants - A Closer Look

Ants are as old as dinosaurs. Homo sapiens have been around for around 200,000 years but ants originated from the mid-Cretaceous period 110 to 130 million years ago. With that said the mass extinction event that happened 65 million years ago the wiped out the dinosaurs, wasn’t able to wipe out ants.

Ants are one of the few species on the planet to have conquered the whole planet. With the exception of Antarctica, the Arctic and a handful of islands, at least one species of ants is present on all other land masses. In some tropical areas of the world, ants account for over 25% of the entire animal biomass. It is estimated there are over 10 quadrillion ants on earth which is a 10 with 15 zeros behind it.

We’ve all seen an image of ants collectively working together to take a piece of fruit, this is made possible by their immense strength. Ants can lift 3x their own body weight and are able to dangle and hold onto up to something 100x their body. This is possible by a microstructure of bumps and folds that distributes the weight.

At one point there was an ant called Titanomyrma giganteum which was the length of an entire thumb. Known as the largest ant to ever live, this ant is not only as long as your thumb but has a wingspan of almost ½ a foot.

The lifespan of an ant can be quite drastic. Some only live for a few weeks where other species can live for years. Queen ants though can live for decades with the oldest living queen ant being 30 years old.

Ants have a unique ability to use pheromones to communicate. They can send messages through these pheromones that alert other ants of danger or if food has been found. Sometimes competing colonies will raid other colonies stealing their eggs. These stolen yet to be born ants will sometimes become slaves of the colony or be eaten as food. Within an ant colony there are different ants for different roles. Soldier ants are designated to protect the colony where leaf cutter ants gather food.

The leaf cutter ants use their mandibles to cut away at all sorts of vegetation like leaves. This is there way of farming though as they will only drink the sap of the leaves and bring the section of leaf back to the colony. They will proceed to clean the leaves then defecate on them to begin the composting process. After a white fungus grows on the decaying matter, ants will gorge themselves with this nutrient rich mold.

When ants aren’t working together they’re fighting. Colonies of ants will fight tirelessly to defend their source of food or territory. Here you see swarms of ants fighting but if you look closely you can see 2 or 3 ants on the same team will hold an opposing ant in place so they can’t fight back. Sadly here we see the aftermath of this epic battle. Why can’t they all just get along?

I hope you enjoyed this new style of video where I mix commentary with this macro footage I shot. I’d appreciate any comments you might have and until the next one have a good one.

Source:
https://futurism.com/10-crazy-facts-about-ants/

Support TTL by using our amazon link: http://amzn.to/2dQQ4nu
Subscribe to our channel! → http://bit.ly/subscribe_to_titantoplist

For copyright matters please contact: titantoplist@gmail.com

Check us out on social media:
Website - http://www.titantoplist.com
Facebook - https://facebook.com/titantoplist
Twitter - https://twitter.com/titantoplist
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/titantoplist

Here at Titan Top List you'll experience the world's best mysteries, science, facts, news, conspiracies, inventions, scams, movies, games and amazing animals. If you enjoy our educational youtube entertainment, like the video and share a comment!

Intro music thanks to Machinmasound:
Rallying the Defense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPk4RD19Nw

Titan Top List is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com