The largest ants - where do they live and can they be found in our area?

TERMITE

What does the word TERMITE

in dictionaries:

• Termite
• Question: “White ant” – answer: TERMITE
• Explosive
• Omnivorous insect of hot countries
• Living pencil sharpener
• An incendiary mixture of aluminum and magnesium with oxides of various metals
• Incendiary powder and insect
• Which animal builds the tallest structures?
• Who gets caught on the tongue of an anteater?
• Ant of “southern blood”
• Ant of the tropics
• Ant, wood pest
• Insect, order Orthoptera
• social insect
• Powder burning with a hot flame
• Powder burning with high temperature
• Powder burning with a bright flame
• The most omnivorous insect of the tropics
• Tropical ant
• ant of hot countries
• there is an insect in the photo

“Belorussky Station” (actress)

White robe of the Roman

Features of reproduction

The reproductive function of the colony is assigned to the queen uterus. Tropical nomad ants have one queen, while other species may have several. The large winged female mates with the male during her first flight. Until the end of her life, she uses up the stored sperm. The adult fertilized queen sheds her wings.

Ants are hymenopteran insects with complete metamorphosis. This means that their life begins with the egg phase, then the larva emerges. Ants turn into adults after pupation. The formation of eggs begins during the period of sedentary life. The fertility of a female is 200-300 thousand pieces. The embryonic period lasts up to three weeks. By the time of the new migration, larvae emerge from the eggs.

This process is synchronized by the development of pupae; adults emerge from the cocoons of the previous clutch. To feed the larvae, the colony sets off. By the time they pupate, the column finds a place to stay.

Once a year, the queen makes a special clutch from which reproductive females and males emerge. As they age, they leave the family and form their own colonies.

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Structure

The body length of worker termites ranges from 2 mm to 1.5 cm, of soldiers - up to 2 cm. In worker termites, the eyes on the head are underdeveloped, sometimes absent, and the antennae are thread-like. The mouthparts are gnawing type. In the appearance of soldiers defending the community from external enemies, attention is drawn to a large head with strong jaws. Therefore, they cannot feed on their own, and worker termites are forced to feed them. Also, working individuals perform such functions as building the nest and gallery itself, obtaining food for the royal couple and larvae.

Bulldog Ants

This is the largest species of ant that has lived in Australia since ancient times. The Bulldog Ant has a large, square jaw that extends five mm above its head and is the reason for their name. Speaking about their organization, it is primitive and resembles the life of wingless black wasps.

Myrmecia pavida are characterized by:

• With a body length reaching 40 millimeters (males), the queen can reach 45 mm;
• When attacked by a tall person, they jump up and jump to the side by 40 centimeters;
• Among their abilities are the ability to swim, chirping sound;
• These are predators that can attack even a large insect;
• They have sufficient vision, so they immediately identify enemies and attack if they enter their territory;
• Small colonies - maximum 100 representatives;
• There is a sting with poison that infects their victims. The bite of such an arthropod is dangerous for allergy sufferers.

Features of ants

The ant family belongs to the class of insects, a type of arthropod. In terms of their way of life, ants are considered “social activists”, since hierarchical social ties are strong within the colony. The ant group includes three rigid social stages: worker ants, queens and males.

The body is covered with a chitinous layer and consists of a head, torso, six limbs and antennae. The paws end with sharp claws that help them climb vertical surfaces. Long whiskers are sensitive to external soil vibrations, air currents and aromas. The eyes have a complex structure: numerous lenses provide motion capture, but the image is not detailed. In addition, the head is equipped with three more eyes of a simpler design.

Ants have a special connection with smell: without this landmark, they would not be able to recognize a member of their anthill or find food. Colony members also use smell to signal danger or call for help. To scare away enemies, individuals use a special poisonous substance and mandibles, with which they can seriously injure the attacker.

Depending on the type of ants, body size (0.4-1.3 centimeters) and build vary. Also, different species have different ratios of the size of the queens and other representatives: the queen is either traditionally larger than the others, or equal in size to them. A common feature is the wings of the queen, which she loses after mating ends. The color also depends on the variety: there are red, brown, black, green and blue representatives.

Dinoponera

The genus includes six subspecies, each of which lives in the forests of Peru and Brazil.

Among the main features are:

• The dinosaur has a length of up to 32 millimeters, and the size does not depend on one gender or another;
• Their nests are clay flat mounds with burrows up to three centimeters in diameter. In most cases, anthills are located at the roots and trunks of trees, going deeper into the ground by more than 100 centimeters;
• Families are small, numbering up to several dozen;
• These are predatory arthropods that eat insects, amphibians, birds, and fish. Hunting is carried out at night; during an attack, the victim is subdued by stabbing;
• If they sense a threat, individuals run away, hiding in burrows;
• They bite painfully, but the bite is not dangerous to humans, the pain goes away after 15 minutes;
• Families have several working females, while laying eggs is carried out by only one of them - the one that secretes a pheromone that can suppress the will of each member of the colony.

Meaning

Termites living in the soil play a positive role in nature. Along with ants and earthworms, they play a significant role in the turnover of soil structures. The role of termites in food chains is also important, as they serve as food for many predatory animals.

About 10% of termite species are pests in human households. Penetrating into houses, termites destroy paper, wood, and all household items containing cellulose. Sometimes this leads to catastrophic consequences. In tropical countries, precautions are taken to prevent these insects from entering homes.

INTERESTING FACTS. DID YOU KNOW THAT..

• In hot and dry areas, the air in termite mounds is always humid. The walls of termite mounds do not allow water to pass through and do not allow moisture to evaporate, which gets inside through underground shafts.
• In Mexico, termites have a symbiotic relationship with the ant tree: by consuming wood, they loosen the soil, giving the plant oxygen.
• Australian termites build amazing slab-shaped structures that look like tombstones. These termite mounds are always oriented so as not to overheat under the scorching sun.
• Termite mounds often reach enormous sizes. For example, in India, large animals sometimes hide from bad weather in destroyed termite mounds: not only buffalos, but even elephants.

Benefits and dangers for humans

The beneficial actions of stray insects do not exclude danger to humans. Once on the path of the colony, a person risks being bitten by hundreds of individuals. Nomadic ants do not bite their prey immediately. They crawl under clothes in large numbers and act on a signal. For people prone to allergies, such an attack ends in anaphylactic shock.

We suggest you read: How to get rid of ants in an apartment in a matter of days?

Termites are found throughout the African continent - in tropical forests, savannas, coastlines, mountains and deserts. True, they are rarely seen, because they are small in size and live secretly. That is why they are less known than elephants or ostriches. So it’s worth telling about them in more detail.

[edit] Classification

About 3,106 species of termites have been described (two types of termites are found in the Russian Federation: in the Sochi and Vladivostok areas).

Infraorder Isoptera

Family Cratomastotermitidae Family Mastotermitidae
Parvoorder Euisoptera
Family Termopsidae Family Archotermopsidae Family Hodotermitidae Family Stolotermitidae Stolotermitinae Porotermitinae Family Kalotermitidae
Nanoorder Neoisoptera
Family † Archeorhinotermitidae Family Stylo termitidaeFamily RhinotermitidaeCoptotermitinaeHeterotermitinaeProrhinoterminaePsammotermitinaeRhinothermitinaeTermitogetoninaeFamily SerritermitidaeFamily TermitidaeSphaerotermitinaeMacrotermitinaeForaminitermitinaeApicotermitinaeSyntermitinaeNasutitermitinaeCubitermitinaeTermit inae

Literature

• Zhuzhikov D.P. Features of structure and regulation of development in the termite family. Readings in memory of N. A. Kholodkovsky: Dokl. for 38 years. Reading, April 4, 1985 - L.: Nauka, 1986. - P. 74-105.
• Abe, T. D. E. Bignell, M. Higashi, eds. 2000. Termites: Evolution, Sociality, Symbiosis, Ecology.
  — Kluwer Academic Publishing, Dordrecht.
• Donovan, S. E., D. T. Jones, W. A. ​​Sands and P. Eggleton. 2000. The morphological phylogenetics of termites (Isoptera). - Biological Journal of the Linnean Society
  70:467-513.
• Engel Michael, David A. Grimaldi and Kumar Krishna. 2009. Termites (Isoptera): Their Phylogeny, Classification, and Rise to Ecological Dominance.
  American Museum Novitates. 3650:1-27. [1]
• Engel, M. and K. Krishna. 2004. Family-group names for termites (Isoptera). - American Museum Novitates
  3432:1-9.
• Grassé, P. P. 1986. Termitologia.
  Comportement, Sociatilé, Ecologie, Evolution, Systematique. — Paris, Masson. — V.3, 715 p.

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Family life of white termite ants.

Termites are popularly called “white ants”. Like ants, they live in large families. Left alone, the termite inevitably dies even in the most favorable conditions. Each family has at least one pair capable of reproduction, as well as their children - sterile worker termites and "soldiers".

The fertile female (called the “queen”) lays eggs. Lots of eggs! After all, the larger the family, the more successful it is. Most often, the queen is alone in the family. To fulfill its role, its abdomen grows so that the female becomes ten times longer than other termites. The female becomes so huge and heavy that she loses the ability to walk.

The female essentially turns into an egg-producing machine. Over the course of a year, she lays millions of them, in some species – every two seconds! In addition to such a queen and her “husband,” there are maturing males and females in the nest. They, the only ones in the nest, are winged and when the time comes, they leave it and found new families.

“Soldiers” are family protectors, mainly from ants. The soldiers have powerful, strong jaws, sometimes so large that they cannot be eaten, and the workers feed their defenders. A soldier with his wide head, like a cork, can completely block the enemy’s path in a narrow tunnel. If the wall of the outer tunnel is damaged, several soldiers block the gap with their heads.

Many termites have “soldiers” that shoot a fountain of poisonous or sticky liquid at the enemy. It also contains an “alarm substance” that mobilizes help - new detachments of soldiers. If a large gap appears in the wall of the nest, soldiers immediately run out of it and take up a perimeter defense. Meanwhile, behind them, workers are quickly clearing up the accident. True, by doing this they cut off the soldiers’ path back to the nest, and they are doomed to death.

Wooden diet.

In ancient times, the ancestors of termites fed on dead organic matter - fallen leaves, humus soil (like earthworms), and manure. However, in nature there is a resource that is abundant all around, and there are only one or two people willing to eat it. This is dead wood. It consists of strong cellulose fibers, which are digested with great difficulty or even difficult for digestion.

As you know, even dead wood gradually rots - it is decomposed by bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms. Some, having got into the intestines of termites a long time ago, remained to live in it. The insect’s body gives them good protection from enemies, drought, etc. And for this they “undertook” to process lifeless wood into substances accessible to termites.

A third, or even half, of a termite’s body weight comes from its beneficial companions. If you deprive him of these “tenants” and give him plenty of food, he will last for two weeks and die of hunger. Where do termites that have just hatched from eggs get them from? All family members feed their friend half-digested food. Newborns also get their share of food rich in beneficial microbes.

The ancestors of termites probably lived in rotting wood. It provided them not only with food, but also created a humid microclimate. Termites have thin body coverings, and in the open air the body easily loses moisture. This creates considerable problems for insects. After all, even the largest log is eventually eaten.

We invite you to read: Description of a rat: what street and ornamental rodents look like, the appearance of rodents depending on the species

You need to look for new food supplies and move to them. But running on the surface of the soil, under the rays of the hot sun, is deadly for termites. That's why they moved to live underground, in a permanent nest. And roads are specially laid for food. This way of life provided them with constant high humidity in the surrounding air and gave them protection from enemies - spiders, snakes, birds, and animals.

In some species, the nest is a system of chambers connected by passages. Other termites construct additional protection in the form of above-ground mounds or strong towers. Such a nest is more difficult to open from the outside; it helps maintain the desired microclimate. They layer sand grain by grain over a period of months and seal it with clay and saliva.

Inside the house there are rooms for the queen, for raising offspring, and a mushroom garden. Many chambers are separated by partitions made of chewed wood. In the tropics, monolithic pointed termite mounds up to 8–9 meters high are especially impressive! Scattered across the savannah, gray and red, they look like strange modern sculptures. In the old days, Africans opened such termite mounds and smelted metal in them. By the way, to crack them, you need a crowbar and remarkable strength.

Termite mounds are complex structures that have galleries, gentle descents-ramps, ventilation pipes, and outside shells for draining rainwater. In the Sahara, termite mound pipes reach groundwater. Descending into these “wells,” insects drink and carry the water up to give their relatives a drink. The nest is designed in such a way that stable temperature and humidity are maintained in the hatching chambers. On the roof of the house it can reach 50°, but inside it does not rise above 30°.

Often, “scout” termites discover deposits of food that cannot be eaten quickly. For example, a thick trunk of a fallen eucalyptus can reach and weigh tens of tons! Termites build stable roads to such a “dining room” - underground tunnels. Unlike our paths and tracks, termite tunnels are more or less straight, without sharp turns.

This allows you to spend less energy when going for food and move faster. Builders compact and smooth the loose walls, lubricate them with a mixture of clay and saliva, and remove pebbles from the road. Moving along the road, termites leave odorous marks on it, which help those who follow to navigate in complete darkness.

It is not always possible to get to food from underground. Dry branches may be somewhere high up in the crown, firewood may be stacked in a woodpile, etc. In short, in order not to starve, termites have to leave their cozy dungeon.

At first, having come to the surface, the termite immediately returns, and soon soldiers appear from the tunnel, mobilized by the chemical signals of the scout workers. The soldiers mark the path and line up along the side of the road with their heads facing outward. Under this guard, the odorous path lengthens until it reaches its destination. A lively movement begins along it. Workers chew off grains of wood and carry them to the nest.

Sometimes such a road reaches a length of 50 meters. But termites feel uncomfortable outdoors. In addition, on a long road, no security can save ants and other predators from gangs. Therefore, termites use grains of soil moistened with saliva to build walls and roofs along the road. They compact and smooth them from the inside, sealing all the cracks.

Soldiers guard the construction site - they stand on the walls until a roof appears over the highway. The result is a completely closed tunnel, similar to a thick cord. It stretches across the ground, dives into the grass, and climbs up a tree trunk. If a new food source is discovered somewhere on the side of the route, a branch tunnel is built to it.

People are wary of “white ants”. Termites destroy any wooden structures and objects. To protect wood, special impregnation or replacement is required - with stone, concrete, metal. Plus, termites, when building roads and tunnels, damage communication cables, rubber, film and plastic;

But in nature, especially in the tropics, termites are one of the main links in the cycle of substances. If it were not for these insects, the soil would be covered with a layer of fallen branches, fallen trunks, and this entire mass would lie for centuries as a dead weight. Termites quickly process it, returning useful substances to the soil, and they become available to other organisms. Termites mix the soil; through their tunnels, air and water, necessary for the inhabitants of the soil, easily penetrate into it.

...All over Africa - from the deserts of Algeria to the savannas of Tanzania and South Africa - scientists are excavating the remains of huge dinosaurs. Termites are their peers. But unlike the terrible lizards, they have survived to this day and are thriving. And if it weren’t for these tiny creatures, the appearance of African nature would probably be different.

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{amp}amp;White ants{amp}amp; termites are popularly called. Like ants, they live in large families. Left alone, the termite inevitably dies even in the most favorable conditions. Each family has at least one pair capable of reproduction, as well as their children - sterile worker termites and {amp}amp;soldiers{amp}amp;.

The fertile female (called the {amp}amp;queen{amp}amp;) lays eggs. Lots of eggs! After all, the larger the family, the more successful it is. Most often, the queen is alone in the family. To fulfill its role, its abdomen grows so that the female becomes ten times longer than other termites. The female becomes so huge and heavy that she loses the ability to walk.

The female essentially turns into an egg-producing machine. Over the course of a year, she lays millions of them, in some species – every two seconds! In addition to such a queen and her {amp}amp;husband{amp}amp;, there are maturing males and females in the nest. They, the only ones in the nest, are winged and when the time comes, they leave it and found new families.

{amp}amp;Soldiers{amp}amp; - protectors of the family, mainly from ants. The soldiers have powerful, strong jaws, sometimes so large that they cannot be eaten, and the workers feed their defenders. A soldier with his wide head, like a cork, can completely block the enemy’s path in a narrow tunnel. If the wall of the outer tunnel is damaged, several soldiers block the gap with their heads.

Many termites have {amp}amp;soldiers{amp}amp; shoot a fountain of poisonous or sticky liquid at the enemy. It also contains {amp}amp;anxiety substance{amp}amp;, which mobilizes help - new detachments of soldiers. If a large gap appears in the wall of the nest, soldiers immediately run out of it and take up a perimeter defense.

Wooden diet.

Answers to the crossword puzzle from AiF 43 2022

Answers to the crossword puzzle from AiF 43 2022 (10 27 2021)

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Answers to the crossword puzzle from Arguments and Facts No. 43 2022 (27 10 2021) : 1. Panama. 2. Instigator. 3. Video sequence. 4. Airport. 5. Yap. 6. Vampire. 7. Par. 8. Two. 9. Truck. 10. Tractor. 11. Jacket. 12. Aquilon. 13. Detective. 14. Game. 15. Tula. 16. Cloud. 17. Shuttle. 18. Waka. 19. Wound.

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