In the summer, along with the rest of the insect community, ants are visible in tropical forests. The three categories of ants are the males, workers, and queens. An ants life cycle can last anywhere between a few weeks and several months, depending on the surrounding environment.
How do ants reproduce ?
Ants are social insects with a social structure in which the queen and worker ants share tasks. While worker ants forage and gather food, brood, and maintain the nest, queen ants are in charge of reproduction and dissemination. When we discuss reproduction in ants, it differs from mammalian reproduction. In contrast to other insects, ants are unable to reproduce. The other female ants are sterile; only the queen ant may reproduce. Drone ants are fertile male ants that are prepared to mate with the queen ant.
Life cycle of Ant :
The four stages of the ants life cycle are the egg, larva, pupa, and adult. Unfertilized eggs result in male ants, while fertilised eggs result in female ants (queens, workers, or soldiers).
1. Egg: Ant eggs are oval in shape and extremely small (1 mm or so in length, compared to the queens eggs many times greater size).
2. Larva: The worm-like larvae devour the food that adult ants regurgitate. They are without eyes and legs. As the larvae grow bigger, they moult (lose their skin) numerous times.
3. Pupa: When the larva reaches a specific size, it weaves a cocoon-like structure around itself and pupates (against a solid object, such as the chamber wall). The body transforms (metamorphoses) into its adult shape throughout this time.
4. Adult: The pupa grows into an adult. Typically, the full life cycle takes 6 to 10 weeks. While some workers only live up to seven years, certain queens can live for over fifteen.