Ants



**__Ants __** **__By Seung Hee Jun __**  toc

=**Introduction ** =  What do you think is one of the most **common** but interesting insects in the world? If you guessed ants, you’re right. The features of ants help them to move heavy objects, observe and protect the nest. They are your neighborhoods. They live every where like crack in doors, in the garbage can, and even in your plant. Also, they play a very important role in the nature. Now, let’s learn about ants.

=Features =  The ant’s body is divided in to three parts; the head, **__thorax__**, and **__abdomen__**. They have six legs, one pair of antenna, a pair of pinchers, and tiny hairs all over their body. The hair is used to clean its antenna, which is also called feelers. They have **claw**s at the end of their leg (Like a toe), which is used to hang, climb, scratch, or dig. Each leg of an ant has three joints. The legs help the ant to lift heavy objects, raise its body to look strong, and help to aim acid at predators. Ants have two stomachs. The first one is the digesting stomach, and the other one is a saving stomach called ‘Crop’. When ants eat, they digest some and save some to put in the storage room or share with others. As you know, there are a lot of species of ants in the world. They are **various** appearance. There are small, large, red, black, orange ants in the world. In addition, some species are the Bulldog ants, Leaf cutter ants, Fire ants, Red ants, Black ants, and the Japanese Needle. The ancestors of ants are bees. Termites aren’t really ants. Their ancestors are cockroaches. Not much people know this.



=** Habitat ** =  Ants’colonyis called ‘**Nest**’. Ants live everywhere. They live under your house, between the walls, under ground, crack in the woods, up on the tree, etc. Their nests can be long as a giraffe’s neck. Inside the nest have rooms like the littering room, storage room, the children room, the queen’s room, and many others. The littering room is used to litter dead body of ants and useless food or other things. The storage room is… well, you’ll know. The children room is used to keep lavas, and the queen’s room is the room that the queen lives. Worker ants in there help the queen to lay eggs. Ants are very good at adapting in different nature and disasters. That’s how they live everywhere. The **queen** ant is the heart of the whole colony. She lay eggs, and live for 10~12 years (Some live 5 years or over 20 years!). Every ant’s lifespanis different according to the species. Every worker ants are female, and they live about 3 month to 4 years. Male ants just play for the whole life and after mating, they just die. They live about 6 month. The worker ants feed the queen, protect the colony, and bring food. Ants eat only liquid food. They drink honey from flowers and fruits. They <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">also harvest ‘**Honey drew**’, which is honey ‘aphids’ make. When they take dead insects, they don’ts ‘eat’ it. They just drink the juice out like spiders and trash the left over away. =<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">**Niche** = <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ants play very important roles in the nature. They clean tossed food, rubbish, and other stuff we litte red. They **consume** the food you spilled at lunch, eat the left over ice-cream cone you threw away last night, and eat your chips you hid from your sister!! <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">Also, they consume and clean **corpse** and carcass. It becomes food for other **organisms** like ant eaters, various kinds of insects, **carnivore** plants, bacteria and many other organisms too. <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">If ants didn’t exist, Earth will be filled with corpse, carcass, and food we littered. <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">Also, the population of creatures that used to consume ants will decrease, and the opposite will increase. The **food chain** will collapse. Some species will be extinct!!

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Conclusion = <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">So, you’ve learned that ants are very important, wise, and strong. <span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">If ants knew how to think, we will be extinct. Don’t kill ants. Love them (<span style="-moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous; -moz-background-origin: padding; background: yellow;">Unless they’re in your underwear).

=<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Youtube Video = <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> media type="youtube" key="E98bMZ650yE" height="344" width="425" Ants decomposing a dead Lizard (-..-)

Bibliograpy -Null. Web. 29 Oct. 2009. <@http://ask.nate.com/qna/view.html?n=6388481>. -My head. -Youtube