Interesting Ant Species

Interesting Ant Species

          There is about 20,000 ant species around the world, but one of the most interesting ant species is the Polyergus or more commonly known as the slave raiding ants. These ants have a particular custom that are similar to human, and that is raiding territory and capturing enemy for slave.

          Most ants have a huge workforce that provided food and care for everyone and the queen, but the Polyergus are so lazy to work they find an alternative to work. The other ant species that lives near the area where Polyergus lives are the Formica. The Formica is like normal household ants that lives inside wood or mound.  Due to the Polyergus superior strength and warlike body, they with a 6-8 weeks period usually raid Formica territory. After neutralizing the Formica, the Polyergus will usually take the Formica’s pupae and bring it back to the Polyergus own territory. They’ll start to breed the pupae with help from before captured Formica. After the pupae are hatched, the Polyergus will eliminate the odour from the Formica and started to use them as their workforce for gathering food.  After the workforces have deceased, the raid starts all over again. Unlike to human, the raids are usually non-violent and there are almost no casualties in raids like that. The Polyergus usually overwhelm them is massive number, and they started to emit confusing acid and odour. After the queen ant of the Formica evacuated her ants, the Polyergus started to take the Formica’s pupae. 

          In conclusion, even with similar attitude with human, the Polyergus ants are different in the sense that they never commit violence in a slave raid. The Polyergus raids of the Formica is a truly remarkable stuff that is happening right now in the nature.

A Polyergus ants!