Ant Hill Wood

Known more commonly as Leaf Cutter Ants, or sometimes Parasol ants; these ants belong to the Attini Tribe of ants which collect large amounts of vegetation by actually cutting up leaves from trees with their powerful jaws. These leaves are then chewed up into a mulch and used as compost on which to grow a particular type of fungus. This produces little nodules which the ants then bite off and eat.
The ants may eat fruit and insects also on occasions, but the fungus they cultivate in their underground gardens is their main staple diet.

Found mainly in the tropical rain forests of central and south America, they form very large colonies of between 3 to 7 million ants.
A fully mature nest may cover an area of up to 7 metres across and go down below ground for at least 3 or 4 metres, making it a very large and impressive structure indeed.
The thousands of tunnels lead to several hundred rooms or galleries, which can be as many as two thousand in number.
At least one third of the nest is taken up by the fungus gardens, which the ants use as food for both adults and brood alike.

Being a monogynous species, the entire population of several million ants all spring from 1 single queen.
Like all gardeners, human or ant, the Atta constantly work hard at keeping their fungus garden free from pests and diseases. New fungi cultivation replaces any old and worn out crops, which like human food sources, does not last forever!

The smallest workers of the nest are only 1-sixteenth to 1-eighth in length (approx. 3mm), being able to squeeze into parts of the nest where larger workers cannot pass, perform the task of tending and weeding the garden.
These minima ants are only 1 three-hundredth the weight of the bigger super-major workers or soldier caste.
There are seven caste sizes in an Atta colony performing a total of 29 tasks in all. Depending upon the size of each individual, each ant worker has 3 or 4 best suited to their physical ability.
In laboratory research carried out at Harvard University by the eminent mymecologist E. O. Wilson, he discovered that each new queen takes on all the tasks required for the colony until she has raised her first batch of workers.
Also, if one particular group of workers is depleted within the colony, then other workers of a different size caste will accept the duties of the missing ants until they can be replaced by the queen.

The queen lays eggs at a rate of more than 1 million per year, and may live to be 17- 21 years of age. Most queens will live a minimum 15 years old.
For the first 3 years all the eggs layed will only produce workers of various types, such as harvesters (leaf collectors) pellet-makers, shredders and of course the large soldier caste.
After 3 years the colony becomes established and mature enough to produce sexual males and females. Both sexes are winged and fly off to mate away from the nest when ready to do so.
The large queen is vastly superior in size to any of her worker subjects, being maybe 150 times bigger than her tiniest daughters.

Messor barbarus is a harvester ant that lives on the Mediterranean coast, northern Africa and probably in the middle east.There are 3 different worker castes,minor,media and major workers.The major and media workers are mainly foragers that are able to carry the heaviest seeds.The majors also crack the seeds inside the nest. It is the smaller workers that chew the seeds to make a wet paste that the ants eat.There is no trophalaxies, except when feeding the larvae.

This tropical species, as its name suggests, originated in warm regions such as North Africa. Even in the tropical regions where it exists, it still associates itself with humans and inhabits houses, foraging both indoors and out for any scraps of food which we tend to drop all over the place.

In the colder climate of Britain, this ant has not developed any special adaptations for coping with our cold, wet and often freezing conditions. In fact, this ant will be rendered immobile at 7Celcius and dies at a temperature of 5C or less.
As a result of this, it needs to live in places which are kept constantly warmed with artificial heating, such as human homes, hospitals or hotels.

It originally came into Britain onboard ships which brought tropical fruit into this country. Once here, it rapidly colonized any place where the temperature stayed around 27-30 degrees Celsius and maintained from 70-100% humidity.
Places in which Monomorium have been found nesting include cakes, tins, fuse boxes, beds and bedding, brackets holding radiator pipes, door lintels and hollow walls; to name but a few.

At first, the individual ants are very tiny and inconspicuous. Workers are a mere 2-2.5 millimetres long and reddish-yellow in colour, while queens are darker and 4mm. The queens have no wings except for a very short period after they emerge from the pupal stage.
Colonies are extremely variable in size; ranging from 100 to 2,000 workers and from 5 to 100 queens.
The small colonies actively make up one vast super-colony, which can and does often seperate or reform again, as they do not develop any antagonistic or territorial behaviour towards themselves. This comes about because the males and females of this ant species don't require any elaborate nuptial flight for copulation.
They mate within the nest, so the newly fertilized queens are immediately ready to assume the role of an egg laying mother.

There appears to be no other method of reproduction of colonies than by the budding system. Small groups of workers with larvae establish themselves away from the main nest, where they rear new queens and males and become totally independent. Experiments have shown that the optimum number required to form a new colony is 50 workers and 50 larvae! Curiously, this seems to be much more successful than a group of queens and workers without larvae.
The colony reproduces itself most of the year, but it shows a marked increase around from June to September.
As a new colony must of course walk to a new nesting site, it is generally restricted to the same building as the parent nest; but if two or more buildings are connected via heating pipes, then the ants will use these to transport their new colonies to a different location. Failing this, they can hitch a ride using humans or animals to move from place to place.

A species that shares many traits with the closely related genus of Formica. Generally this species is identified by its sickle shape mandibles. This genus is native all over the Northern hemisphere with varying shapes and colors.

Common names: Amazon ants, slave maker ants

Nest Location: In the forests around Bristol, Massachusetts.

Population estimate: Around 500-800 workers, half being slave species while the others are the Polyergus workers. 1 queen per colony.

Nest type: They are nesting in sandy dry soil at the edge of a small field close to the forest. Colony is near colonies of Formica incerta and Formica pallidefulva.

Behavior: These ants are a slave maker species that cannot survive with their kidnapped work force. They consume any protein and sugary liquid as well as brood from other ant species. The diet of the colony is chosen by the slaves of the colony that care for the workers and broods as if they were sisters. Large groups of workers will preform raids on host colonies stealing large amounts of pupae and larvae. Some stolen brood will be eaten and others will be aloud to mature into the next generation of slaves.

Method of Hunting: Colonies appear larger then most of its host species near by. Workers will appear above ground during the day. Locating the colony is simple wait outside a suspected nest for a while (preferable when a large number of the host species are coming in and out) and checking for any deep red workers that appear above ground but, generally don't leave the nest area.

Rarity: These ants appear to be rather rare. Colonies are spaced out over large distances because they need enough host colonies to support them and if 2 colonies discover one another they often have very aggressive fights. If one colony is near by, you will need to look for another area far enough away from it to have a descent chance of finding another. This ant is not protected by any laws in Massachusetts as far as I am aware but, adult colonies SHOULD NOT be collected but started from young queens.

Coloration: These ants can vary in color even in the same nest. All workers I have seen were a dark red on the head an thorax. The gaster can be all red, or have red coloration at the beginning of the gaster then gradually change to black at the end.