"Of the estimated 14,000 species of ant, only half of have been studied in any detail. Most of these diverse species live in social colonies with a rigid caste system. The queen's role is to reproduce, she is the mother of the colony. Drones are fertile males that service the queen while princesses are her fertile daughters that will establish new colonies. The rest are the queen's sterile daughters that defend the colony as soldiers or provide food, maintenance and care as workers.
The best known ant species have remarkable adaptations to their environments, such as the famous leaf cutter ants that carry 50 times their body weight, fetching pieces of leaf to use as fertilizer for nourishing fungus.
In honeypot ant colonies, specially adapted workers known as repletes store sugar and protein
solutions in their swollen abdomens which can grow to the size of a cherry.
Slavemaker ants are named for their habit of shirking the hard work, instead capturing the pupae of other colonies to raise as slave workers.
These tiny insects are incredibly tough: fire ants can form rafts to float on flood waters, species in
Canada produce their own anti-freeze to survive at below -20C, while the desert ants of the Sahara forage in searing 60C heat.
Such evolutionary adaptations are fascinating;"BBC STOP--- these " evolutionary adaptations" are examples of micro-evolution, better known as genetic variation within a kind. These ants are still ANTS. They apparently could all do these things at one time, but as small groups early on, those who lost through genetic mutations the info would die out in a hostile environment. The rest adapted, multiplied 7 survived.
Macro-evolution on the other hand, is like from a whale to a human or a dinosaur to a bird or some other nonsense.
In honeypot ant colonies, specially adapted workers known as repletes store sugar and protein
These tiny insects are incredibly tough: fire ants can form rafts to float on flood waters, species in
Such evolutionary adaptations are fascinating;"BBC STOP--- these " evolutionary adaptations" are examples of micro-evolution, better known as genetic variation within a kind. These ants are still ANTS. They apparently could all do these things at one time, but as small groups early on, those who lost through genetic mutations the info would die out in a hostile environment. The rest adapted, multiplied 7 survived.
Macro-evolution on the other hand, is like from a whale to a human or a dinosaur to a bird or some other nonsense.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard;
consider her ways, and be wise:
Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler,
Provideth her meat in the summer,
and gathereth her food in the harvest.
Proverbs 6:6-8
