Queen ant
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A queen ant (also known as a gyne) is an adult, reproducing female ant in an
ant colony An ant colony is a population of ants, typically from a single species, capable of maintaining their complete lifecycle. Ant colonies are eusocial, communal, and efficiently organized and are very much like those found in other social Hymen ...
; she is usually the mother of all the other ants in that colony. Some female ants, such as the '' Cataglyphis'', do not need to mate to produce offspring, reproducing through asexual
parthenogenesis Parthenogenesis (; from the Greek + ) is a natural form of asexual reproduction in which the embryo develops directly from an egg without need for fertilization. In animals, parthenogenesis means the development of an embryo from an unfertiliz ...
or
cloning Cloning is the process of producing individual organisms with identical genomes, either by natural or artificial means. In nature, some organisms produce clones through asexual reproduction; this reproduction of an organism by itself without ...
, and all of those offspring will be female. Others, like those in the genus ''
Crematogaster ''Crematogaster'' is an ecologically diverse genus of ants found worldwide, which are characterised by a distinctive heart-shaped gaster (insect anatomy), gaster (abdomen), which gives them one of their common names, the Saint Valentine ant. Mem ...
'', mate in a nuptial flight. Queen offspring ants among most species develop from
larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...
e specially fed in order to become sexually mature. Depending on the species, there can be either a single mother queen, or potentially hundreds of fertile queens. Not every colony of ants has a queen. Some colonies have multiple queens. Queen ants are the only members of a colony to lay eggs. After mating, they can produce thousands, sometimes millions, of eggs during their lifetime. A queen of '' Lasius niger'' was held in captivity by German entomologist Hermann Appel for 28 years; also a ''Pogonomyrmex owyheei'' has maximum estimated longevity of 30 years in the field.


Life cycle


Development

Ants go through four stages of development:
egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the ...
,
larva A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase ...
,
pupa A pupa (; : pupae) is the life stage of some insects undergoing transformation between immature and mature stages. Insects that go through a pupal stage are holometabolous: they go through four distinct stages in their life cycle, the stages th ...
(sometimes cocoon, called metamorphosis depending on the species) and adult. The larvae have no legs but are capable of some minor movement, such as bending their head toward a food source when fed. During this stage, the level of care and nourishment the larvae receive determines their eventual adult form. When resources are low, all larvae will develop into female worker ants; however, if the parent of a sexually reproducing colony has a plentiful supply of food, some of the larvae will receive better nourishment than others, and develop into winged, sexually mature female ants destined to leave the colony. At this stage, the winged female ants are sometimes known as "princess ants".


Early life

When conditions are hot and humid after rain and there is minimal wind, masses of winged sexually reproducing ants or " flying ants" will leave their parent nest and take flight. The mating flights occur simultaneously in all ant nests of the particular species. The female "queen" ants will fly a long distance, during which they will mate with at least one winged male from another nest. He transfers
sperm Sperm (: sperm or sperms) is the male reproductive Cell (biology), cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm ...
to the seminal receptacle of the queen and then dies. Once mated, the "queen" will attempt to find a suitable area to start a colony and, once found, will detach her wings.


An established colony

Once a colony is established, the worker ants meet the queen's needs such as giving her food and disposing of her waste. Because ant social structure is very complex and individual ants are relatively simple, an ant colony can be thought of as a single organism, and the individual ants as cells or limbs of the organism, as the individuals can rarely survive on their own. In a colony, some ants may be unrelated to the queen(s), such as when a brood is captured in a raid and raised as the colony's own.


Reproduction

Once the colony has established itself, the queen ant will lay eggs continuously. Among species that reproduce sexually, the queen selectively uses the sperm cells retained from the nuptial flight, laying fertilized or unfertilized eggs depending upon the cyclic needs of the colony; the sex of each individual ant is determined by whether or not the egg is fertilized. The fertilized eggs become female worker ants and unfertilized eggs develop as males; if the fertilized eggs and pupae are well-nurtured, they potentially become queens. This system of sex determination,
haplodiploidy Haplodiploidy is a sex-determination system in which males develop from unfertilized eggs and are haploid, and females develop from fertilized eggs and are diploid. Haplodiploidy is sometimes called arrhenotoky. Haplodiploidy determines the s ...
, is generally true for all ''Hymenoptera'' – ants, bees, and wasps. However, a few ant species do not reproduce sexually, and members of these clonal colonies are all female.


Long-lived queens

The patterns of expression of genes involved in repair of DNA damage or protein damage were compared between age-matched queens and workers of the ant ''Lasius niger''. The expression of these genes increased with age, and at age two months this increase, in both the legs and brain, was significantly greater in queens than in workers. This difference in repair gene expression between queens and workers suggests that the greater
longevity Longevity may refer to especially long-lived members of a population, whereas ''life expectancy'' is defined Statistics, statistically as the average number of years remaining at a given age. For example, a population's life expectancy at birth ...
of ''L. niger'' queens is due, in part, to increased investment in DNA and protein repair.


See also

* Ergatoid *
Queen bee A queen bee is typically an adult, mated female ( gyne) that lives in a colony or hive of honey bees. With fully developed reproductive organs, the queen is usually the mother of most, if not all, of the bees in the beehive. Queens are develope ...


References


External links

*
Antalas - Hormigas como Mascotas
- Queen Ant as a pet - Antalas - 20224-09-09 {{Types of ant Ants Insect reproduction Sociobiology