6 replies to this topic

[AntsInSpace]

Hi guys,

 

I'm wondering what happens to an ant when you remove it from its colony/nest and then put it in the wild,

 

Lets say you put the ant a few meters away from its nest, will it know how to get back, will it try to get back ?

Say you see an ant walking, and you put a leaf down, it climbs onto the leaf then you move the leaf a meter away and place it down again, will the ant be disorientated ? And then the same questions as the ones before.. 

 

If you take an ant from one colony/nest and place it at the door of another, will it join the new native colony, and if it could, would it depend on the species of ants found in the nest ? 

[AntsInSpace]

Also, if you remove an ant from the colony, say for an hour or a day, and place it back in the colony, will it carry on being part of the colony ? 

[Martialis]

 

I'm wondering what happens to an ant when you remove it from its colony/nest and then put it in the wild,

 

Unless it's a (fertilized) queen alate, it dies.

 

 

Lets say you put the ant a few meters away from its nest, will it know how to get back, will it try to get back ?

Say you see an ant walking, and you put a leaf down, it climbs onto the leaf then you move the leaf a meter away and place it down again, will the ant be disorientated ? And then the same questions as the ones before.. 

 

Yes. You moved it from its previous location and placed it far away from where it originally was. Not to mention the movement of picking up the leaf and moving it would also disorient it.

 

 

 

 

If you take an ant from one colony/nest and place it at the door of another, will it join the new native colony, and if it could, would it depend on the species of ants found in the nest ? 

 

No. They kill it. Unless both are argentine ants in the introduced range.

 

 

Also, if you remove an ant from the colony, say for an hour or a day, and place it back in the colony, will it carry on being part of the colony ? 

Probably.

 

I recommend you check out Quora  for asking these questions in quick succession. 

[AntsInSpace]

Ill check Quora out, I was actually on another ant forum for three weeks now, and it takes a few days before I get a reply.. so the questions just stacked up. 

 

Hmm poor ant.. alright well when it comes to entering another ant nest, will it try to enter the nest ? Since the ant is disorientated and lost, it may try to enter some hole that turns out to be a best, there are often ants by the entrance, now how different is that interaction from different species of ants walking by one another, as I have seen a species of ant that's quite large and a smaller species meet along the road, check each other out like they're talking or something then carry on along their way. 

[Martialis]

Nah, really won't try to enter another nest, because they rely much more on their olfactory rather than their visual system.

 

Many species actually will forage over several meters, so it may be able to find a pheromone trail leading back to its nest.  The reason it would be disoriented is not because its visual surroundings have changed, but because the chemical trails and other scents would have.

 

What you may have seen were a minor and major ant; different castes of the same species. 

[AntsInSpace]

Lets say these were major and minor ants, the major ants were coming from about 2 meters to the left of where I saw the minor, and there were a trail of them leading to about 2-3 meters to the right of it.. but I didn't think about it that way. I'll be going there again soon so I'll check it out, might find out more.

 

Hmm, jees I'm upset that I didn't consider pheromone trails.. I was just thinking well then.. the ant is doomed. So there's still a possibility of it returning back to its nest.  

I'll be testing these things out soon.. just to get a video kinda memory to work with/validate the theory behind what happens to an ant.. 

 

Something that just came up is, pheromones.. but I'll google this one. Are they like little pieces of dust that stick to the ground.. cause I can't imagine they float around and end up being blown away by the slightest of winds. there must be something to them. 

[Chicken_eater100]

They're chemicals, that ants sense, as smell, I think.