Talk:Ant/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

"Colonized all Landmass Except a few Remote Islands"

Some remote islands do not have ants. Which ones? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.131.103.125 (talk) 16:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If you read on, it tells you: "Ants are found on all continents except Antarctica and only a few large islands such as Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia and the Hawaiian Islands lack native ant species."

The "lead" section of the article is just a summary of the main content. --McGeddon (talk) 16:25, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

What happens when an Ant loses its Abdomen?

A few Hours ago I saw an Argentine Ant on my bathroom counter and struck it with the Bottom end of a Plastic Cup. The strike had completely severed off and crushed its abdomen and two hind legs. But strangely enough, to my surprise, the Argentine Ant was still alive and crawling about in a calm manner with only FOUR legs left. I knew for sure in the back of my mind that it wouldn't survive for long without its abdomen section so I put it out of its misery by flushing it down the sink.

Which brings me to today's question. Can certain Species of Ants still function normally after they lose their Abdomens? And if so, how long can they survive? Only a few minutes or until they reach the end of their lifespan? --Arima (talk) 07:09, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I would imagine any kind of ant would die of dehydration fairly quickly under those circumstances. I guess ants haven't had sufficient time to evolve strategies to deal with death by beverage. Have you considered using recycled paper cups to kill ants instead ? Also see Karma. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:05, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It lost too many essential organs to survive for too long (to actually answer your question, I don't know how long). I don't know about it dying of dehydration though. Isn't water absorbed through the midgut, which is contained in the alitrunk? The break between the pedicle and the gaster would probably heal up pretty fast.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 00:00, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomy and Evolution section concern re: eusociality

I recently perused the version history to view the frankly baffling vandalism that necessitated the semi-protection of the article. Said semi-vandalism prevents me from dealing with one particular issue myself, but this may be for the best as it merits discussion anyway. My concern is the following quotation from the article: "The fact that ants and termites are both eusocial came about by convergent evolution." It is certainly true that these two instances of eusociality evolved independently, and the MRCA was not eusocial. However, I was under the impression that "convergent evolution" implies in addition that similar phenotypes were due to similar selective pressures. While the Wikipedia article on convergent evolution does not confirm my suspicion that this constraint is definitional, my experience of external sources describing convergent evolution has thus far always mentioned this. Since the eusociality of ants and termites evolved in response to haplodiploidy and high colonial homozygosity respectively, "convergent evolution" in this restricted sense is inapplicable to the ant/termite case. This was my understanding hitherto of the nomenclature, but the fact that this would be an issue with the article on convergent evolution also if I were correct leads me to suspect I am mistaken once, rather than Wikipedia being mistaken twice. But could someone more versed in the usage of the term comment on this? I'd be interested to either learn I was indeed confused or else see the articles updated on this point if, in fact, I was right the first time. Thanks. 90.211.130.202 (talk) 19:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

You are partially correct. Convergent evolution is when two unrelated taxa acquire similar attributes independantly by similar selective pressures, but there is no indication that ants and termites evolved by different selective pressures. It is still a matter of debate how either of them achieved eusociality so it is impossible to determine if they were by different means. While it's likely that ants' evolution to eusociality was influenced by haplodiploidy, but it is not accepted as the only influence.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 23:55, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

So, even if we're not sure the selective pressures I have proposed above are correct, we're also not sure that any common or similar selective pressures were involved, are we? So the article, in stating the eusociality is due to convergent evolution, is claiming something about which we're not sure, am I right? That doesn't sound like a good idea. 90.211.130.202 (talk) 09:41, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

You could edit the article if you were registered and spent some time editing articles. Have added a reference, and cannot find any published references suggesting that the form of eusociality in termites and ants is evolved within a common lineage. Unless there is a narrower definition of "convergent evolution" being used, similar features evolving along disparate phylogenetic lineages would qualify. Thorne, Barbara L (1997). "Evolution of eusociality in termites" (PDF). Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 28: 27–53. Do provide published references for what you seem to be suggesting. Shyamal (talk) 10:03, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

The article on convergent evolution considers "similarity from convergent evolution as homoplasy" and your query seems to be whether the converse is automatically true. I suspect this may not have an easy answer due to the fuzzy definitions involved and the complexity of "behavioural" traits like "eusociality". Shyamal (talk) 04:29, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. You've done a better job of it than I could have. 90.211.130.202 (talk) 20:01, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

"Ants evolved..." as a statement of fact.

I was wondering if we could have some references inserted after the second sentence of this article: "Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants." Also, perhaps this statement should begin with the words "Many experts believe..." or "Evidence suggests..." etc. etc. rather than making a statement of fact since this is not an established fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.6.149.18 (talk) 11:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

This brings up a good point that many things are stated as fact when it comes to science. I think that people are only careful to state things the way you describe for things that haven't been statistically proven, which points out several flaws in the statement. Evolution is well enough established as well as ants evolving from wasps, but them first appearing the the mid-Cretaceous period is hard to statistically prove. I suppose this should be changed if I'm right, but I may not be.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 00:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The Cretaceous period is not a short duration even on an evolutionary scale. The sentence might appear precise if used with some small unit of time but putting it at somewhere between 110 to 130 million years is not exactly being very precise nor does it appear to be an arrogant statement of the available evidence. Shyamal (talk) 04:54, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Very true.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 17:27, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Old section

where do ants mate. how long do they live. do they have sex. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.7.207.156 (talk) 19:21, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

heh, viable question. This spawned me to look over the reproduction part of the page and I did some rewriting. It should be double-checked for good measure. The article answers these well enough. Ant's live varied amounts of time depending on many things. Some workers only live a few months while some queens have been recorded to live more that 30 years.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 16:13, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

ants

there is an error: the section "Distribution and diversity" contradicts the intro. "More than 12,000 species are currently known (with upper estimates of about 14,000), with the greatest diversity in the tropics." vs. "More than 12,500 species are classified and the upper estimates of species is about 22,000." can someone clear this up? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.42.47.8 (talk) 21:31, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Please provide a source. The data changes over time. http://www.antweb.org/world.jsp Shyamal (talk) 01:45, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Common ants varieties

There is almost no mention of Little Black Ants or Red Ants in this article. I see these ants everywhere and think that there should be more mention of them.

I'm not sure where you are but if it's Europe then those guys are probably Lasius niger and Myrmica rubra. They aren't common everywhere. Sean.hoyland - talk 01:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Why do they need more mention anyways? This page is supposed to contain information about ants in general for more specifics about the ants you're talking about, you'll have to find pages for them. Common red ants where I am from are harvester ants: Pogonomyrmex--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 16:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Sexual Selection Strategy

Aside from the fact that sexual behaviour is worthy of mention for any species I think it deserves attention because;

Ants have highly sophisticated social behaviour. Some ants developed forms of "cattle" herding, some establish pheromone sented routes to food and to the nest, they build complex structures. Quite remarkable. And it is quite likely that all this behavior is evolved, rather than learned and remembered by communicating these behaviors and concepts.

In part this evolution can be explained by the vast number of ants, but it can also be argued that even though there are huge numbers of ants, these ants all mate with one queen. This means that there is a huge limiting factor in the generation of diversity.

Does the queen perhaps select worker ants that assume more useful roles, allowing for faster adaptation? If so, how?

Big thanks to the person that adds this :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.116.233.2 (talk) 20:38, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

while ants do have the ability to learn and be conditioned, most of their behavior (at least the behaviors you're talking about) is genetic/instinct. Sexual selection is interesting in ants because the functional unit has almost not connection to the preferences of the reproductives. All the behaviors that you are listing are not sexually selected. Frankly, sexual selection doesn't seem to be much of a factor for ants at all. During mating, the ants seem mate with who they come in contact with, but perhaps queens reject certain males sometimes. Again, not much influence on the colony. Most selection happens when the colony is either successful or unsuccessful and therefore making more or less reproductives.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 16:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

strength of ants

In popular culture, ants are portrayed as incredibly strong -- lifting 50 or 100 times their own weight. See Gladiator (novel), Ant-Man, Ant Queen, Atom Ant, Ant (comics), Great Army of the Ant-Men, etc.

How strong are real ants? Can they really carry many times their own weight? --68.0.124.33 (talk) 22:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

good question. This probably doesn't have place on the ant page. Ants are pretty famous for this but actually you should think of insects in general. Some are a lot stronger than ants and a lot are weaker. To answer your question: I think ants can carry at least 20 times their weight and most of the time more (as long as they are adults, obviously). I don't know what the most is but I don't think any could lift 100 times their weight.--FUNKAMATIC ~talk 17:32, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

A very nice article

A very nice article, my thanks to all who contributed.Ineuw (talk) 18:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. My compliments to those who've worked to get this article to where it is. BigNate37_(T) 23:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Observation of Ant physical changes after exposure to soy milk + coffee

A few of us was having lunch outdoors when one of us decided to pour soy milk + coffee mix on the entrance of an ant colony. The result was very interesting with some of the ants at the entrance which were exposed to the fluid, shrinking up to half the original size. They were still alive afterwards and seems to be normal. Although their behaviour is a little weird, not foraging but running almost randomly around. We didn't stick around to find out whether they increased in size again afterwards. I have no idea whether it was the action of the soy milk or the coffee, or simply fluid. I posted this here hoping someone would experiment further on this. I am no expert on ants, the type of ants observed were around 2cm in length, redish in colour and have a black head. --LowLifer (talk) 23:48, 19 May 2010 (UTC) did you know that if you put lets say 45 ants in a box so they can not get out and then leave them alone they will eat each other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.246.111.80 (talk) 17:31, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

queen ants have wings?

is this right? queen ants have wings? huh. the ability of ants to teleport seems pretty-well established, but this queen ants have wings thing is new to me. -sio. 131.230.224.28 (talk) 23:01, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Never seen flying ants? --Michael C. Price ^talk 23:30, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Valid subfamilies

The subfamily classification in the infobox doesn't match the subfamily listing in the cladogram. Should we do something about this ? Sean.hoyland - talk 15:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

By changing "incl. ..." to "often includes" or "sometimes includes" as the case may be perhaps ? Shyamal (talk) 15:42, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

I admit it's a bit of a can of worms... I'm not a fan of the current approach in the subfamilies listing because it's not entirely clear whose scheme we are following and why. In that sense it fails WP:V. Sean.hoyland - talk 17:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that people keep adding subfamilies without generating new overall classifications; a list can be updated by simply adding new groups as they are described (e.g., Leptanilloidinae), but a cladogram cannot until and unless someone publishes an entirely new cladogram. I would argue that this is why the taxobox list has "precedence" over a cladogram; the cladogram has a single, published, static source, the taxobox list can be a dynamic composite of all available resources. Dyanega (talk) 21:07, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

How big can a Ant get?

My older son while taking out some garden rubbish spotted a very large ant and explained to me the size and width and he said very assuredly that it was an ant a big black one (we do have a lot ants in the front of our house) 3inches in length and three quarter inch in width and I asked him to go back out to see if he can capture it , because that seems a bit unusual for an ant to be that big! It had got away but we will continue to look. A road construction crew was along our street paving a new road and there was a lot of vibrating and it brought out two big nests in different locations infront of our house and there was a lot of winged ants scrambling around so I am assuming this big black one had to be a queen that was drawn out because of the ground shaking so much. Is it possible for an ant to be that big!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.3.138.28 (talk) 18:56, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Distribution and diversity

First sentence:

Ants are found on all continents except Antarctica and only a few large islands such as Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia and the Hawaiian Islands lack native ant species.

Would it read better as?:

Ants are found on all continents except Antarctica. Only a few large islands such as Greenland, Iceland, parts of Polynesia and the Hawaiian Islands lack native ant species.

How about the article is unlocked so I or other stray IPs can edit it? 71.234.215.133 (talk) 20:20, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

Biomass incongruence?

In the section "Distribution and diversity" we can read: Their ecological dominance may be measured by their biomass, and estimates in different environments suggest that they contribute 15-20% (on average and nearly 25% in the tropics) of the total terrestrial animal biomass, which exceeds that of the vertebrates but at the end of "Relationship with humans" we can read: According to this estimate, the total biomass of all the ants in the world is approximately equal to the total biomass of the entire human race.

Then, both affirmations: "approximately equal to the total biomass of the entire human race" and "which exceeds that of the vertebrates" I think are not possible. --Furado (talk) 23:12, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

The first one is about non-human vertebrates within specific ecosystems (vertebrates tends to be low biomass contributors in tropical forest habitats in any case) while the second seems to be a global estimate. Human biomass apparently now exceeds that of all other land vertebrates. (not able to find specific comparisons but there is an interesting growth chart here) Shyamal (talk) 02:06, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

PS: It would be good to have the exact figure for the human comparison (also whether this is based on dry weight) if someone has the source (there are some figures at Biomass (ecology)) and there is a good note here. Shyamal (talk) 04:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

antARK

please can you add a link for this educational ant site, antARK an introduction to myrmecology. http://www.antark.net/ Formicarium (talk) 16:45, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that site meets the requirements of the Wikipedia:External links guideline. Sean.hoyland - talk 16:53, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Dishwashingliquid vs. ants

Well, this summer I had an ant-invasion in the house and I thought I'd clean out their chemical tracks. So I used a spray-bottle with dishwashingliquid (mixed with water) and washed off the floor where the ants had walked. I hit some ants (just thought that way they couldn't leave any trail) and within less than a minute they were dead. What's going on here? What is it about dishwashing-liquid that kills the ants? They can't breathe or something? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.196.118.47 (talk) 09:07, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Ants breathe through holes in their sides. The soap probably clogged these holes. Totnesmartin (talk) 21:19, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Is Bug spray humane

Is bug spray humane? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.120.47.16 (talk) 02:30, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

They're insects. Who cares? They are not capable of feeling pain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.228.163.72 (talk) 13:22, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Bretnac, 27 December 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} In section 7.3 ("In science and technology"), 'Sir John Lubbok' should be corrected to 'Sir John Lubbock'. Bretnac (talk) 20:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

Y Thanks for spotting that. Fixed. Do continue editing a little longer on WP and you will soon be able to do such fixes on your own. Shyamal (talk) 04:52, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Genomics

Research on ants is being bumped to the 21st century by recently available genome sequences and genome sequence databases:

• http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1009690108
• http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1007901108
• http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1008617108
• http://www.sciencemag.org/content/329/5995/1068.abstract
• http://fourmidable.unil.ch

(disclosure: i'm a coauthor on the fire ant paper)

perhaps an "Ant genetics/genomics" section is warranted? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yannickwurm (talk • contribs) 13:07, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. Feel free to WP:BEBOLD and write it yourself, so long as everything is referenced to the articles you've linked and you don't overly big up your own research. SmartSE (talk) 13:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that sounds great. As long as you avoid things like "in a paper by the brilliant Yannick Wurm"..etc you should be able to steer clear of the WP:COI policy. Sean.hoyland - talk 13:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

What kind of ant is this?

I live in a hot sub-tropical region. My mom keeps finding these black ants with red end-sections. They're not fire ants, but they aren't black ants either. They're about medium-sized. What kind of ant is that? 24.179.27.28 (talk) 18:22, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Take a photo, upload it here or somewhere else and then post a link at WP:RDS with more details about where you live and someone might be able to help. Your current description isn't that much use unfortunately. (you could also look at http://www.antweb.org/ and see if you can find it there.) SmartSE (talk) 12:22, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

Population and density

How many ants are there? I have heard that there are more ants in my backyard than there are people in the world. How many ants on average live in a cubic meter of temperate topsoil? Other climates? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.217.200.214 (talk) 20:25, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Cataglyphis navigation

Hey there

I looked through the ant article and found that at the point Behaviour and ecology -> Navigation the Catalgyphis fortis are discribed in a way that implies that they use landmarks "and other cues" as major means of navigation. And that the Cataglyphis bicolor ants use path integration and keep track of their travelled direction. That's a bit misleading, I think. Cataglyphis fortis are the ants where the pedometer has been discovered (science 2006), where they showed that optic flow plays a role in distance estimation JEB 1995 and the reviewpaper linked to the next sentence discussing C.bicolor talks in fact a lot about C.fortis as well. So, it'll be better if we merge the statements and write that ants of the Cataglyphis family use vector navigation by means of a odometer/ventral optic flow system combined with a sun compass as primary tool for navigation. And that they also use visual, olfactory and tactile landmarks to improve navigation. Unfortunately I'm not allowed to edit the article... Ameisendok (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:52, 19 May 2011 (UTC).

You should now be able to edit the article. Shyamal (talk) 04:26, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Myrmecology

I'd like to suggest to merge this article with the Myrmecology article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gnotsie (talk • contribs) 03:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Chinese

{{edit semi-protected}}

It's disappointing this page is protected. The section on the Chinese character for ant, under Culture, desperately needs to be removed. It is based on a very common but gravely wrong misunderstanding of how Chinese works. The character (蚁) does not mean "insect who behaves properly" (虫义). Instead, it just means an insect (虫) pronounced like "yi" (义). The section includes a citation, but the citation is just an etymological dictionary, and the inference made here is totally ludicrous and ignorant of the workings of the Chinese writing system.

-Zhang — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.182.233.2 (talk) 17:42, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

I'm also disappointed by not being able to remove this very misleading paragraph. If the character 蚁 (or 蟻) means "insect which behaves properly", the same logic would dictate that the other character in the word for ant 蚂 (a combination of 虫 'insect' and 马 'horse') means "insect which is like a horse". As Zhang's comment above indicates, the character 蚁 is simply a combination of a meaning radical and a phonetic component giving its pronunciation. Chinese_characters#Phono-semantic_compounds has a good description of this principle for forming Chinese characters, and clarifies that the large majority of Chinese characters have this structure. In fact, even the website that the original paragraph cites confirms that the right half of the character in question is a phonetic as opposed to carrying additional meaning.

Just to be explicit, the text we're asking to be removed is:

"The Chinese character for ant (simplified Chinese: 蚁; traditional Chinese: 蟻; pinyin: yǐ) is a combination of two logograms that may be interpreted as "insect (simplified Chinese: 虫; traditional Chinese: 蟲; pinyin: chóng) which behaves properly (simplified Chinese: 义; traditional Chinese: 義; pinyin: yì)". The traditional Chinese character yǐ (蟻) used in Japanese shares this etymology. In spoken Chinese the ant is usually referred to as mǎyĭ (simplified Chinese: 蚂蚁; traditional Chinese: 螞蟻)."

Clearish (talk) 20:32, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Removed, thanks for comment. Unfortunately, vandalism resulted in semiprotection, but after 4 days and 10 edits registered editors can edit such pages. Materialscientist (talk) 22:57, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Collettm, 14 September 2011

The references for the 'Navigation' section of the entry 'Ant' are almost entirely from one research group. To provide a more representative sample of background reading, I think it would be useful to add two well-cited reviews by other authors.

Namely, after: "They integrate this information to find the shortest route back to their nest.[92] " also refer to M. Collett & T.S. Collett 2000. How do insects use path integration for navigation? Biological Cybernetics 83:245-259.

and after "Like all ants they can also make use of visual landmarks when available[93]" also refer to T.S. Collett & M. Collett. 2002. Memory use in insect visual navigation. Nature Reviews Neuroscience 3:542-552.

Collettm (talk) 13:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems like the time is ripe for editors like you and User:Ameisendok to create a good quality article on Ant navigation. You should be able to edit the article on your own now. Shyamal (talk) 15:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Untitled

The section Ant cooperation and competition should be expanded, maybe even moved to its own page. There is definitely enough to write about for that.

Also, parts of the article are a bit messy, with bulleted lists mingling with text and photos. Maybe some parts should be re-written to flow better. IronChris | (talk) 05:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Citations need to be added and section structure and layout needs improvement. Section on taxonomy and phylogeny needed. Shyamal 11:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Have removed all bullets and have added citations for numerous factoids. Have attempted some improvement in the flow. Hope it is better than before. Shyamal 04:55, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

origin

is it true that ants are not native to the united states, but stowed away in a fruit shipment from overseas somewhere?---- ruth — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.90.255.95 (talk) 19:41, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

the small black ants that are every where came from argentina, but i think there were ants here already.Meatsgains (talk) 19:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 March 2012

Simple typo in the sidebar, sidebar link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceratiinae should be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proceratinae

Dtrombley (talk) 21:37, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

 Not done - the correct spelling does seem to be "proceratiinae". Neither spelling exists as a Wikipedia article. --McGeddon (talk) 21:45, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Punctuation

"Army ants forage in a wide roving column..." Is that a "wide, roving column", which is a column that's wide and roves? Or a "wide-roving column", which is a column that may or may not be wide, but roves widely? I suspect it's the latter, but clarifying the sentence would be good. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:16, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I believe it is the former meaning. Other ants move in single file or nearly so. Shyamal (talk) 04:39, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

new lead image

I think the lead image should be of a swarm of ants since they are known as superorganisms. LittleJerry (talk) 02:21, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Ant Swarm Theory

I think it should be mentioned if ants use swarm thoery. If the intelligence of the group should be generalized to the individual. Perhaps some experts could give reasons for or against. I only read a couple articles, but it should be mentioned if the topic is even debatable.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/07/swarms/miller-text

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2012/08/06/swarm-intelligence-how-the-behavior-of-ants-can-be-used-to-improve-everything-we-do/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swarm_behaviour — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.170.170.199 (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I believe this is covered in the section "In science and technology" and there are links to more detailed articles on the subject there. Shyamal (talk) 04:43, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

Fossil range

as it is a more notable change them my last couple Im going to post this here first. The fossil range and age for Formicidae given in the article currently is not accurate. The Late Jurassic age is based on a blog post from 1996 about punitive fossil "ant" nests found in Colorado. However the attribution of the ichnofossils to Formicids was subsequently rejected by the majority of paleoentomologists and entomologists. This paper [1] covers the topic. The age should be changed to reflect the oldest Fossils being middle Albian in age [2].--Kevmin § 17:51, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

Rather awful to see that blog citation. Have removed it, please do fix any others. Shyamal (talk) 02:36, 7 May 2013 (UTC)

Ants as Pests

This article is protected to a degree that I cannot make changes. However I would suggest someone who has such privileges to make the following changes to that section:

a) any ant that enters into human habitats, bite humans or their pets or livestock, or damage human structures crops will probably be considered to be a pest. To say that "some" species of ants are considered to be pests is not sufficient and probably PC. People kill ants almost instinctively, without taking the time to consider the variety of ant or its individual, colony, or species relevance in the global circle of life. I'm not saying that certain species of ants play more positive roles, but more often than not, humans consider them to be unwanted, e.g. pests.

b) controls for specific ants are not really relevant to an article general to the species called ants. For example, controlling fire ants with boiling water, or use of boric acid/borax belong in some other article about ant control which can be referenced.

--97.95.34.149 (talk) 01:55, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

Good point, have trimmed it and expanded it along the lines suggested. You would be able to edit if you were logged in and regularly editing for a few days. Shyamal (talk) 05:53, 7 August 2013 (UTC)

New ant task force

Please see the new ant task force (announced here). jonkerz ♠talk 21:57, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Antwiki

Compare our information on the Agroecomyrmecinae with Antwiki's Agroecomyrmecinae. -- Hillbillyholiday ^talk 20:06, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

 Done. By a coincident, I started the Agroecomyrmecinae article 10 days after your post. There's room for improvement, but WP's article is already [slightly] better than AntWiki's imo (thanks to D.A. Donoso whose open access article made it possible to reuse his content on WP). jonkerz ♠talk 22:00, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Photo of ants in New Jersey

Photo, not sure if photo is ready for prime time in the article. Ants on sidewalk in NJ; btw pretty cool ant photos in article already, people are doing a really good job on this article.

FYI. Possible inclusion?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 23:52, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Relationship with Humans

A) biomass of all the ants = human race.
B) 1 million ants for every human on Earth.[154]
Both statements can't be true if 1 ant = 3x10E-6kg. Then 1 million ants = 3kg. but 1 human =50 to 65 kg.
Also the reference is outdated, broken and unreliable.
(Preroll (talk) 11:59, 22 October 2013 (UTC))

These are extrapolations given mostly to give a sense of magnitude and are not expected to be too accurate. In any case, biomass is measured as dry weight. Shyamal (talk) 01:49, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

There is also a serious dissonance with the "Distribution and diversity" section, where it is stated that:

Their ecological dominance may be measured by their biomass and estimates in different environments suggest that they contribute 15–20% (on average and nearly 25% in the tropics) of the total terrestrial animal biomass, which exceeds that of the vertebrates.

Both statements statements have citations, the former from a peer reviewed article from 2000, the latter from a book from 2009. I have no idea how to determine which reference should be prefered in this situation. 130.237.74.82 (talk) 11:14, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

You can use either, what it shows is that there is considerable variation in biomass according to habitat and there is considerable margin of error in the estimation involved. Shyamal (talk) 14:15, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Do ants sleep?

My daughter asked me if ants sleep and I was unable to answer her. Do they sleep at all? Under what conditions (eg time of day, temperature) and for how long? Thanks.  Stepho  talk  08:25, 29 November 2013 (UTC)

@Stepho-wrs: Most insects would fail the typical definitions of sleep (which usually is something that goes like ... "a quickly reversible state of rest with reduced response to stimuli (and that rest, if deprived will increase the need for it and some definitions require an advanced brain)". Most insects will however go into torpor or inactivity at night or during cold weather - a condition from which they cannot quickly exit to an active state. See also what User:Dyanega has to say here - also this (paywalled), this and this. Shyamal (talk) 10:36, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that provided a good starting point.  Stepho  talk  21:30, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

You should also add a mention of "Leiningen Versus the Ants" under the cultural section near the reference to H.G. Wells's "The Empire of the Ants". Leiningen Versus the Ants has its own article on Wikipedia. 2014 May 01Kanawishi (talk) 22:55, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Ants and raccoons

If you feed an ant and the food is still there when you go to bed at night make sure to pick it up or else a raccoon will come and spread your garbage all over the place. Samantha (age 6). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.116.251.184 (talk) 14:31, 7 June 2014 (UTC)

Photo of Weaver Ants forming a chain to pull a leaf.

Ants forming a chain to pull a leaf while building their home.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevinsooryan (talk • contribs) 04:32, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

HOW WE CAN TALK WITH ANTS— Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.95.138.241 (talk) 08:12, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

With words, human speech, but ants will neither understand nor speak back. Ants communicate with other ants by sending chemical signals via touch, allowing a colony to coordinate their efforts.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:22, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

"Error: page does not exist"

This error shows up at the very bottom, on one of the table thingies. I don't know how to go about fixing it. 74.128.43.180 (talk) 23:17, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

That was from a template Template:Types of ant which I have removed because it is rather poorly structured and made up a series of rather mixed up terms with perhaps only a US centric view of folk knowledge. Shyamal (talk) 01:58, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Number of species in Australia

The article states 980 species as given by a reliable source, but there should be more later known information. Later sources (Shattuck 1999) estimate over 1,275 known species, but other lists elsewhere give around 1,500, although these lists are considered unreliable. Burklemore1 (talk) 14:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Since the page is locked.. can someone remove the cybervandalism below

Most ant species have a system in which only the queen and breeding females have the ability to mate. Contrary to popular belief, some ant nests have multiple queens, while others may exist without queens. Workers with the ability to reproduce are called "gamergates" and colonies that lack queens are then called gamergate colonies; colonies with queens are said to be queen-right.[58] The winged male ants, called drones, emerge from pupae along with the breeding females (although some species, such as army ants, have wingless queens), and do nothing in life except eat and mate.

I'm not seeing any vandalism. If you're not familiar with the term gamergate, I suggest giving the article a read. Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:17, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Sociobiology

A recent addition was a section called "Cost of reproduction":

Cost of reproduction is a theory that predicts an increase in reproductive investment will lead to a decrease in lifespan. Queens will mate multiple times and store sperm for the majority of their lifetime. Once mated a queen may lay hundreds or even thousands, if well fed, of eggs per day. In Atta colombica multiple mating increases the sperm stores of the queen . While multiple mating increases the potential progeny a queen may have over its lifetime it is a process that comes with a cost, a weakened immune system. In Atta colombica the immune response of mated queens was negatively correlated with the amount of sperm stored. This suggests short-term survival is traded off against long-term reproductive success.

I have removed this for a number of reasons - we do not actually cover a lot of such theory - why should some species have low queen-worker differentiation, why should some have multiple queens and numerous other such questions. These are ideally handled in a separate article on sociobiology with contemporary questions and research. A short summary of reproductive mode variations/diversity would be fine but that needs to be based on a tertiary source. A better and more complete summary would be good if this is to be included in a featured article. Shyamal (talk) 03:19, 12 May 2015 (UTC) PS: The "sexual selection" section is also in need of attention, it seems like some overenthusiastic sociobiology students have overloaded it with species specific observations and hypothesis without an overarching outline of the theories being examined. References are also incomplete, lacking page numbers. Shyamal (talk) 15:02, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

References

Male-male competition

Can someone review this section and try to reorganise it into different paragraphs? Looks messy and it bogs it down from FA quality. I would do this but I only have time for other articles at the moment. Burklemore1 (talk) 02:55, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I actually think we should put in a readable review of ants as models in sociobiology, the rationale, some commentary on the diversity of systems and then move the entire content to sociobiology where they can be more suitable covered along with other hymenopteran systems. I suspect all these additions are part of the education initiative - maybe User:Agelaia will know. The current state of content certainly makes demotion of the article from FA a possibility. Shyamal (talk) 06:31, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Your suggestion sounds nice so we should go along with it. I would be rather saddened if the only article on ants at FA quality is demoted, especially since many ant articles are often neglected or forgotten. Burklemore1 (talk) 15:14, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I'd be wary about this approach since it would seem like we're getting into WP:COATRACK territory a bit (though better than Erikgaal additions). There are many eusocial insects, so I'd put content about research on that in that article and not here. Kingofaces43 (talk) 17:16, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

I went through the section and actually removed most material. I read like someone was writing a thesis or journal article without weight for an encyclopedic audience in mind. I took the seemingly important bits out and left the remaining here. It could be worthwhile to integrate some ideas either into a new mating section, or to put in the reproduction section, but it's probably better to figure that out here first to maintain our article status. I'll try integrating some later, so this is as much as I can do for the time being: Kingofaces43 (talk) 20:27, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Thank you Kingofaces43, the article is looking great again (not saying it wasn't even with the extra unorganised content). If the article was demoted from FA quality so to speak, I'd probably try and re-promote it via a joint effort, but hopefully such case won't happen some time soon. I also noticed the editor who wrote these paragraphs and sections joined Wikipedia a few days ago, so he most likely isn't familiar with most aspects with Wikipedia. This most certainly includes GA and FA and the effort to maintain the quality in these articles. I think it would be the best option to write a new mating/reproduction section in a sandbox and receive feedback from other editors beforehand so the topic doesn't go out of hand or contain excessive info that is not relevant. That's my opinion though, and editors such as yourself will most likely know what to do. I have seen a similar case of this with the red imported fire ant article, but this was later fixed. Burklemore1 (talk) 05:01, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit swamped with work and one other article I want to update first, but I'll get around to writing up a mating section in the next day or two and see what folks think. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Sexual selection is a highly relevant topic to most organisms, and seeing as how this is a featured article it should certainly include information on sexual selection with examples. Disagreeing with recommendations to have this information appear elsewhere, a trimmed and properly formatted version of this topic should appear in this article where it is most relevant and accessible. The information is solid, it just needs to be rewritten in Wikipedia style. Disagreeing with Burklemore1's recommendation to place this information under the reproduction heading, sexual selection is a function of organism behavior (behavior to maximize reproduction) rather than a function of the organism's reproductive system or rituals. Thus it belongs under the behavior heading as previously placed. I would also recommend keeping the heading sexual selection rather than use a ubiquitous and vague term like mating. Also, it honestly seems like some editors are refusing new information for the sole purpose retaining FA status. Remember that while improper format is damaging to an article's FA status, being incomplete is also damaging. And now since this information is known to exist we should work on properly formatting it and putting it up, so that other articles may look to this as an example of how to properly add the topic of sexual selection (a topic almost universally relevant) to their organism's article. I've since trimmed the information and added paragraphs for easier reading. We should all take a look at it and make changes as necessary. Lastly I would recommend changing the heading of this discussion to sexual selection rather than male-male competition. I would have done it myself, but i'm not sure if such a change is allowed. Erikgaal (talk) 03:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Erikgaal, you're new here, so we do try to cut you some slack, but it seems like you're trying to reach for too much at once. Please read WP:OR. One thing we don't do is write about content we specifically think is important by engaging in original research and synthesizing content from multiple sources together to demonstrate a point (sexual selection is important) as you did. That's fine for a journal article or essay, but that's no the style of an encyclopedia. Instead, we utilize what we call due weight and include the main important details that other secondary sources summarize for us rather than pulling together primary sources of a thesis idea. We generally don't dedicate an entire large section to sexual selection on each organism's page.

People are more than welcome to add content to FA's, but since we have established content already, there's often a good chance it will be undue weight or need a major rewrite. That's all that's happening here. Going into sexual selection to that degree is what we would call a WP:COATRACK, so I'm working on integrating some of the content you started with into a more relevant mating section instead to make sure we have content anchored squarely on ants and not getting too far into the weeds. Kingofaces43 (talk) 00:19, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I must say that I hope our comments don't discourage you from editing in the future. When I was new I was given a lot of advice on improving content on Wikipedia and among other things, so I guess we learn from our mistakes. As mentioned above, you are new here so I'll give you credit for adding all this content. While sexual selection is important, I do not think it always needs to be on an articles page. A fine example is on the bird article, which is another featured article. What they did is create an article on sexual selection in birds; perhaps you could create a new article about it? However, it seems Kingofaces43 already has some plans with the content you published. As for your claim that some editors *may* be refusing to add content for the sole purpose of retaining FA status, I believe we still do welcome new information, but adding such large chunks are prone to disorganise the article in a way and as pointed out, will need a major rewrite or is undue weight. Burklemore1 (talk) 04:06, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Ditto that as well. I will say that what I'm planning is going to focus on mating itself using the bits I outlined below rather than within the context of sexual selection, so I don't really have any claim on it so to say. If Erikgaal would like to write an entire article on sexual selection in ants, I have no qualms there at all. I will say though that as a new editor you should get some experience with general editing before going to create an entire page. Writing here is very different than writing for scientific audiences, so hopefully once you're up to speed, things will go much smoother for you. Kingofaces43 (talk) 04:34, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I do not think this is a synthesis of multiple works. All statements are either implied by the original authors, or explicitly stated. I have came to no conclusions myself, I have simply collected examples of different ways in which ants display sexual selection. I also do not see how adding such examples would distract the reader from the articles main ideas (coat-rack). It really isn't that much information. I certainly see how the article on sexual selection in birds needs to be its own article because it is massive. But this section is tiny in comparison. However the consensus here seems to be this information better belongs elsewhere, although I'm still unsure where that is. To clarify, is kingofaces43 going to create an entirely new article on mating and move the information there? How many organisms are going to be covered in the initial article? (just insects, or more?)Erikgaal (talk) 08:16, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

I am not writing a new article, but currently just working on draft content to streamline the reproduction and mating topics. For synthesis, the issue was that you went too far in summarizing the content yourself rather than letting the sources describe sexual selection and why it should be included here. That resulted in content that was not in line with how we write encyclopedic content. I'll post some draft content here shortly. Kingofaces43 (talk) 19:24, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Mating

• Ants typically aggregate in the nuptial flight, and during invasion of a colony by a drone. Alate drones may attempt to mate during the nuptial flight or by invading a foreign colony and attempting to mate with the resident queen. Drones that attempt an invasion are recognized as an invader and killed by the local worker ants. When attacked, the drone releases pheromone signaling their status as a mate. If the pheromone is strong enough the worker ants will recognize the drone as a mate and carry the drone to the nesting chamber where the queen lies.

• In ants, this operates through mating plugs, mating aggregations, mate guarding, and egg cannibalism.

• Larvae compete by eating eggs which act as a source of nutrition. In some species, the queen produces a trophic egg, or unfertilized egg whose only purpose is to provide nutrition. However, in Formica aquilonia these eggs are viable and may contain other males which, if left uncannibalized, will grow to become male competitors.

• When queens are absent from the nest, workers accept and rear sexual larvae from other nests in an attempt to gain a new queen.

• Males may also patrol the nest and fight others by grabbing them with their mandible, piercing their exoskeleton and then marking them with a pheromone. The marked male is interpreted as an invader by worker ants and is killed within minutes to hours.

• Both the major and minor ergatoid males reproduce with the queens. Ergatoid males are much more aggressive in comparison to the peaceful alate males who have the ability to leave the nest and reproduce during the nuptial flight. However, some alate males are able to reproduce in the nesting chamber, alongside the ergatoid males, by using an alternative mating strategy. These drones are able to avoid aggression from the ergatoid males by utilizing chemical mimicry.

• In many insects secretions from the male accessory glands plug the female genital opening and prevent them from re-mating, and males of Solenopsis invicta contain very similar accessory gland proteins.

• While many species of ants have queens that are polyandrous, the fire ant queen of Solenopsis invicta only mates once.

• Mate-choice is directly observed in queens during the nuptial flight. During the flight, queens will fly in a circle around the swarm of drones and will be chased by the males. Only when a drone catches and mounts the queen will they both tumble to the ground to begin mating.

Sexual selection

In ants, male-male competition operates through egg cannibalism, mate guarding, mating aggregations, and mating plugs.

Larvae compete by eating eggs which act as a source of nutrition. In some species, the queen produces a trophic egg, or unfertilized egg whose only purpose is to provide nutrition. However, in Formica aquilonia these eggs are viable and may contain other males which, if left uncannibalized, will grow to become male competitors. Male larvae cannibalize more often than female larvae.

Ergatoid males patrol the nest chamber and fight others by grabbing them with their mandible, piercing their exoskeleton, and marking them with pheromone. The marked male is interpreted as an invader by worker ants and is killed within minutes to hours. Older and larger males of Cardiocondyla obscurior are more successful in battle. In the ant species Hypoponera bondroiti major ergatoid males do not attack minor ergatoid males. Both the major and minor ergatoid males reproduce with the queens.

Ergatoid males are much more aggressive in comparison to the peaceful alate males who have the ability to leave the nest and reproduce during the nuptial flight. However, some alate males are able to reproduce in the nesting chamber, alongside the ergatoid males, by using an alternative mating strategy. These drones are able to avoid aggression from the ergatoid males by utilizing chemical mimicry.

In harvester ants, alate males leave the nest to participate in mating aggregations. Larger males are preferentially successful in gaining access to females who enter the mating aggregation because they are able to bully smaller males out of the way and are better at holding onto females who resist.

Alate drones may attempt to mate during the nuptial flight or by invading a foreign colony and attempting to mate with the resident queen. Drones that attempt an invasion are recognized as an invader and killed by the local worker ants. When attacked, the drone releases pheromone signaling their status as a mate. If the pheromone is strong enough the worker ants will recognize the drone as a mate and carry the drone to the nesting chamber where the queen lies.

While many species of ants have queens that are polyandrous, the fire ant queen of Solenopsis invicta only mates once. In many insects secretions from the male accessory glands plug the female genital opening and prevent them from re-mating, and males of Solenopsis invicta contain very similar accessory gland proteins.

Mate choice is directly observed in queens during the nuptial flight. During the nuptial flight, queens will fly in a circle around the swarm of drones and will be chased by the males. Only when a drone catches and mounts the queen will they both tumble to the ground to begin mating

Updated content

I integrated some of Erikgaal's content above in this diff. That adds in new pieces of content we already didn't have to some degree. For sexual selection specifically, we'd need a review to point out what's specifically noteworthy about it in ants rather than pull from primary sources. Otherwise we run the risk of getting too technical rather than writing in an encyclopedic style. Kingofaces43 (talk) 21:50, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 July 2015

Legs

All six legs are attached to the mesosoma ("thorax") and terminate in a hooked claw.

an ant in acryl

A,Ocram (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

The file has been added to create a better insight of the appearance of the ant

Not done: as you have not requested a specific change in the form "Please replace XXX with YYY" or "Please add ZZZ between PPP and QQQ".
More importantly, the file you appear to be trying to connect to, does not exist. - Arjayay (talk) 21:08, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Britannica

Obviously we want more up-to-date materials for scientific articles but for those interested in historical understandings of these critters, Wikisource has:

• "Ant" , Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. II, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878, p. 94–100.
• "Ant" , Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th ed., Vol. II, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911, p. 85–88.

some of which might be used for a #History section here or be necessary to cite for passages we've copied from them. — LlywelynII 04:26, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Australian state Queensland has the greatest diversity of ants on earth

If anyone can use this source for any good use, here you go:

• http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queensland-home-to-most-ant-species-in-the-world-20150808-giumpr.html

I wouldn't consider the source itself reliable for the claim (not a scientific source and not independent). I'd go straight to the source that reviewed all the information and has the map itself if anything was going to be cited: http://antmaps.org/?

That's still a crazy order of difference jumping from 700 species in other areas to 1400. Kingofaces43 (talk) 14:16, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Well if that's the case we should cite antmaps.org if we will incorporate it, or use it as an external link. I believe those who are involved are reputable scholars. I just found it interesting to be honest, though not surprised; Australia has an enormous diversity of ants, and the typical climate of Queensland is favoured by perhaps the majority of them. Burklemore1 (talk) 11:32, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 March 2016

In the Polymorphism section, please include a link to the Polymorphism (biology) article. An editor would need to do a minor copy-edit to include the term, since it does not appear in the text. ~Thanks, 2600:1004:B002:C399:C9B7:34:47D9:C78D (talk) 19:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC) 2600:1004:B002:C399:C9B7:34:47D9:C78D (talk) 19:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Done EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 20:25, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Rissing

In the Polymorphism subsection, the name "Rissing" is used without introduction in a confusing manner. I see that Steve W. Rissing the author of the study cited, but his name as written reads like a verb and he's not mentioned before or after. If the associated facts are generally accepted by the scientific community, then there's no need to directly reference their author outside the citation. If they aren't, then a clearer introduction to them should be used. "In Steven W. Rissing's studies on... etc" LordQwert (talk) 04:28, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Agree, there's no need. The article's focus is ants not authors, so I've removed his name. It was plainly a noun, however! Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:49, 4 July 2016 (UTC)

Nothing is plain if it confuses someone! A verb conjugated in that fashion could conceivably fit in that sentence without violating grammar. LordQwert (talk) 06:07, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 August 2016

There is a gamergate vandalism on the page. A link have been replaced by a gamergate link.

Gwion09 (talk) 15:37, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Not done: Click on the link - believe it or not, a gamergate is actually a male ant. (I learned something today!) If I missed something and there actually is a Gamergate controversy link in there somewhere, please reopen this and point it out specifically. Thanks, ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 17:29, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

This worried me too, yet the Gamergate link seems to be correct. At the very least we'd better have some note that this is a coincidence of terminology rather than vandalism. Wyvern (talk) 18:18, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 8 October 2017

In the life cycle section change the following "Ants are active all year long in the tropics, but, in cooler regions, they survive the winter in a state of dormancy or inactivity." to "Ants are active all year long in the tropics, but, in cooler regions, they survive the winter in a state of dormancy known as hibernation." 2601:407:C303:4060:2CE2:DD2A:265B:297C (talk) 21:00, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

Done SparklingPessimist ^{Scream at me!} 21:49, 8 October 2017 (UTC)

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Hibernation Temperatures

The article reads "in cooler regions" no citation is given. cooler is subjective term, at what temperature do ants' hibernation begin and for what species specific temperature? Or citation to source for this field of information.

Iwasking (talk) 03:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Cooler may actually be appropriate here and is contrasted with the tropics. There will surely be much variation and it would be inappropriate to define a hard temperature on it. There is indeed a citation at the end of those two lines - the same author has another paper on the topic that is available online with more information. Shyamal (talk) 03:25, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2018

heading 7.4: use of ants as pets

In more modern times ants have again been used as pets. Via specialised websites or by own hand queen ants are caught and raised. this earlry stage happens in a testing tube with two cotton blockers, one to block water (but the ant can drink from it) and the other one blocks ants from escaping. after a while the ant colony grows and needs to be moved to another set up. these specialised containers are now used to house they are called formicarium. Fabian Lippens (talk) 21:16, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Rhinopias (talk) 22:23, 24 February 2018 (UTC) Classicanimal.com

so the total biomass of ants exceeds that of all vertebrates? or all humans?

I read sentence ref#11 as the former, then e.o. Wilson's section below says he estimated ants outweighed all humans or close to it. aren't those very divergent estimates? Frl987 (talk) 11:24, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

They are both just estimates - I suspect that the Schultz estimate is about natural ecosystems (minus humans) but the source does not state that explicitly. To make matters worse - biomass is traditionally measured as dry weight - so exercises like this one by the BBC are even more flawed - https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-29281253 Shyamal (talk) 15:29, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Ants.. Ants.. They.. ?

3.rd sentence: «They are easily identified by their elbowed antennae and the distinctive node-like structure that forms their slender waists.»

THEY shows back to SPECIES in the prior sentence. But I quess that what is ment is: ANTS are easily identified by...
So:
1.st sentence should begin with Ants
2.nd sentence should begin with They
3.rd sentence should begin with Ants

Jostein Bakke, May 2018 — Preceding unsigned comment added by JHB007 (talk • contribs) 08:09, 6 May 2018 (UTC)

Actually all species of ant have elbowed antennae etc. Not clear what you find faulty here. Shyamal (talk) 15:37, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 June 2018

The following statement has no citation of proof whatsoever. Speculation at best, being seen as fact.

Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the Cretaceous period, about 140 million years ago, and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. 71.91.186.104 (talk) 15:33, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

 Not done: according to "Hymenoptera name server. Formicidae species count". Ohio State University. Archived from the original on 2016-01-27. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help) and Agosti D, Johnson NF (2003). Fernández, F. (ed.). La nueva taxonomía de hormigas (PDF). Instituto Humboldt, Bogotá. pp. 45–48. Retrieved 2015-12-13. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help), Ants did evolve from wasp-like ancestors. L293D (☎ • ✎) 15:47, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Ant resting

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Firsto (talk • contribs) 14:13, 12 April 2019 (UTC)

Grammar

Ants appear suddenly across the globe during the earliest part of the Late Cretaceous, but are already considerably diversified by this time,

Don't you want to say

Ants appeared suddenly across the globe during the earliest part of the Late Cretaceous, but were already considerably diversified by this time,

Jidanni (talk) 15:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Not necessarily, because of context. A better edit would be to say "Ants appear suddenly in the fossil record, across the globe, during the earliest part of the Late Cretaceous..." The point is that we should not be saying or implying that ants appeared on the planet Earth at that time, but that we find them as fossils dating back to that time, when their actual date of appearance was certainly much earlier. Dyanega (talk) 16:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC) by the way lochlan is right

I have made some edits based on this "Ants appear in the fossil record across the globe in considerable diversity during the earliest part of the Late Cretaceous suggesting an earlier origin." - I have dropped "suddenly" as it can fuel strange ideas for readers brought up on intelligent design. Shyamal (talk) 05:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

@Jidanni: @Dyanega: @Shyamal: I wrote the sentence in question, and would have appreciated being pinged. The sudden appearance of a wide diversity of ants worldwide during the Mid-Cretaceous (~100 Ma) mostly reflects the massive increase of the number of amber deposits during this time period (where most fossil ants are found). I'm not sure how or if it should be worked into the sentence though. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Ants 12500 or 12000 species?

The first paragraph of the article says "More than 12,500 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified." while the second paragraph of Distribution and diversity says "More than 12,000 species are currently known (with upper estimates of the potential existence of about 22,000", which is it? WillemML (talk) 17:20, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Both are technically correct (since they say "more than"), but significant underestimates. AntWeb lists 13,871 valid extant species. I've made the necessary changes. Dyanega (talk) 17:34, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you. WillemML (talk) 17:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 February 2021

Bobhyhy (talk) 12:35, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

lochlan is right

That's not an edit request. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 14:34, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Ants and Iceland

Ants (Lasius niger) have been found annually in Iceland since 2002. Perhaps they qualify as endemic now?

Link(in icelandic) :https://www.ni.is/biota/animalia/arthropoda/hexapoda/insecta/hymenoptera/formicidae/blokkumaur-lasius-niger

--Berserkur (talk) 08:27, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the statement in the article qualifies the presence of "native" ants in Iceland. The website seems to suggest annual re-establishment of colonies. Some more details could be added if more scholarly/peer-reviewed sources are available. Shyamal (talk) 10:49, 20 April 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 September 2021

May I have an editing request? 208.64.35.33 (talk) 21:15, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. You have created an edit request but did not say what you want changed. RudolfRed (talk) 22:43, 18 September 2021 (UTC)

What they do with their dead

I don't have a source yet but my pastor said in his sermon this morning that ants bury their dead and that one scientist figured out he could put oleic acid on an ant and it would be treated like it was dead.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:03, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

It seems to be some twisted cartoon version of scientific research done over years by many people experimenting with multiple species. Researchers have indeed looked for the signals that elicit necrophoresis / sanitation behavior, ie the removal of dead ants and their disposal (not necessarily by burying, btw) - and have sought to idenfity if the triggers are chemicals that appear after death or if the behavior is inhibited by the presence of chemicals that are found in life. There are findings that suggest that both mechanisms could exist and could be triggered based on context. We already cover a bit in the article and there is more also at necrophoresis. You can read further in the following: Shyamal (talk) 06:25, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

• Choe, D.-H., Millar, J. G., & Rust, M. K. (2009). Chemical signals associated with life inhibit necrophoresis in Argentine ants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(20), 8251–8255. doi:10.1073/pnas.0901270106
• Bos, N., Guerrieri, F. J., & d’ Ettorre, P. (2010). Significance of chemical recognition cues is context dependent in ants. Animal Behaviour, 80(5), 839–844. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2010.08.0
• Diez, L., Moquet, L., & Detrain, C. (2013). Post-mortem Changes in Chemical Profile and their Influence on Corpse Removal in Ants. Journal of Chemical Ecology, 39(11-12), 1424–1432. doi:10.1007/s10886-013-0365-1

Sorry, I had to remove the section you inserted - because it breaks the structure - burial is just one of many behaviours used as part of nest sanitation, which is a part of defense from pathogens and parasites. It is not just dead that are removed but also those that are infected, and as mentioned above, not by burial alone. Shyamal (talk) 06:36, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Overly technical

Flagged as overly technical: "the introduction especially should be understandable by educated people without having to follow links". This is a comparatively general article covering tens of thousands of species called ANTS. So it is a starting point for many people—educated but not biologists—who want to know more about ants. I have flagged the introduction but the same argument applies throughout the article. Humphrey Tribble (talk) 03:43, 6 June 2022 (UTC)

Can you point to specific wording that you find overly technical? I am not an entomologist and I found it very readable. Given it's FA-status, I'd err on the side of "it's fine" and remove the template soon unless someone can point out problematic wording/phrasing. WhinyTheYounger (WtY)(talk, contribs) 01:37, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with WhinyTheYounger. I'm neither an entomologist nor a scientist of any sort, nor someone with much science background at all. This is an excellent article, easy to read, easy to understand, and with tons of super interesting information. This is the first time I've ever seen a note of "overly technical", and imho it would be a mistake to dumb down this article. The information, while detailed, is very readable. Whoever has the authority or the standing or whatever to remove that 'overly technical' note should remove it. 2607:FEA8:129D:E00:C513:4958:177C:FA68 (talk) 05:34, 3 August 2022 (UTC)