Episodes

  • Ants: Ranchers

    Ants: Ranchers
    Nov 6 2025
    Summary: We know ants are farmers, but are they also ranchers? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett “Trophobiosis is a tropical rainforest on Borneo: Giant ants Camponotus gigs (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) herd wax cicadas Bythopsyrna circulate (Auchenorrhyncha: Flatidae),” by Martin Pfeiffer and Karl Eduard Linsenmair “Aphid-farming ants,” by Annie B. F. Ivens and Daniel J. C. Kronauer “Ecological consequences of interactions between ants and honeydew-producing insects,” by John D Styrsky and Micky D. Eubanks Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Two episodes ago we found out that ants are farmers, at least some species of ants are farmers and they are amazingly well organized and productive farmers. The other side of sustained food production is ranching. Ranching is a form of agriculture focused on raising livestock for various uses. Are ants ranchers? Let’s find out! The eighth thing I like about ants is their ranching activities. For those of you listening in order, last episode we learned about the Weaver ants of Africa that live in trees. They are some of the coolest ants out there with special physical adaptations and behavioral adaptations that help them survive in the tree. One of the activities I didn’t talk about, because I was saving it for this episode, is their ranching. The weaver ants, Oecophylla longinoda, use other insects as a form of food resources. Now they do hunt other insects and tear them apart and eat the bits, but they also corral certain insects and use the honeydew that those insects produce as food. Mealy bugs, plant hoppers, and scale insects are some of the “cattle” that Weaver ants utilize. These insects are all sap-sucking species that tap a plant for it’s sap and drink it. The ants love the honeydew, or doo-doo, that comes out the other end of these insects. Yes, that’s correct, the ants are eating their excrement which is actually more nutritious than nectar. The Weaver ants are protective of their livestock keeping them from harm and moving them to fresher pastures, just like human cowboys. They often build leaf tents over and around their charges keeping them hidden from predators and controlling their movements so they can gather the honeydew for as long as the insect lives. Who knew ants were ranchers? It’s not only Weaver ants that exhibit this behavior. Some species of Formica ants are also ranchers. They will tend similar insects as the Weavers including Mealy bugs, plant hoppers, scale insects as well as whiteflies and aphids. I found several papers talking about the relationship between Formica ants and aphids. They really treat these aphids like humans treat cattle. The ants tend them, watching them to protect them from predators, they will pick them up and remove them from a plant when danger arises (okay humans can’t pick up cattle, but we can escort them to another area when needed), and when the part of the plant that the aphids are eating from begins to run dry the ants will take them to greener pastures. The ants are after the honeydew, of course, the excrement from the aphids, just like the Weaver ants. It is high in concentrated sugars and carbohydrates that keep the ants running. Giant ants, Camponotus gigas, from the tropical forests of Borneo herd wax cicadas. They are incredibly well organized in their herding and perform three behaviors to help gather as much honeydew from these cicadas as possible. Some of the ants are collectors and spend about 80% of their time sitting below the cicadas to collect the honeydew as it comes out. Ants that spend their time collecting often focus on one cicada, returning to the same individual after each collection. There are also secondary gatherers that collect honeydew from the body parts of the primary collectors and receive honeydew via trophallaxis, or passing of regurgitated liquids to another insect. This allows the primary collectors to spend more time collecting directly from the cicadas. The secondary gatherers take the collected food back to the nest. A third worker might sometimes stand in front of the cicada and perform what the researchers called “antennating from ahead”. One or more ants will sit in...
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    10 mins
  • Ants: Arboreal Ants

    Ants: Arboreal Ants
    Oct 29 2025
    Summary: How do colonies of ants live in trees? Find out in this episode about arboreal ants. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. We are rounding the bend with the ants series and there is no better way to do that than to take to the sky. The title of this episode is Arboreal Ants. There are ants that live in trees and never touch terrestrial earth their entire lives. You thought the Leafcutter ants were amazing, well hold on to your hat because the seventh thing I like about ants is the colonies that live in the trees. Arboreal ants, which are ants that live in trees, are found on many different continents and there is more than one species, but we are going to focus on one species in particular so we can really see their amazing qualities in detail. We’re spending some time with the Weaver ants of Africa, Oecophylla longinoda. Now living in a tree for an ant is no small feat, so how do they do it? Terrestrial ants dig into the dirt and create many chambered nests. It’s kind of difficult to dig into a tree, so where are arboreal ants living? Weaver ant nests are most common in the outer, uppermost branches of trees where the sun light is bright. Here, the ants will bind adjacent healthy leaves together to create a treetop tent. The size of each nest will vary but is often between the size of baseball or a volleyball. They are as light as an inflated ballon and can withstand wind, rain, and enemy invasions. To begin building a nest, a worker ant will pull the edge of a leaf toward the edge of another leaf. If her bending is successful other workers will come to her aide. Now weaver ants get their name from the next step. To keep the leaves together they employ their larvae. If you’re think, “What?” I hear ya! The larvae are picked up by workers and taken to the edge of the leaf connection. The workers tap the larvae on the leaf to encourage the larvae to release silk. Yes, the larvae of many species of ants create silk. The Weaver ants use this silk to secure the leaves together. The motion of shuttling the larvae back and forth to connect the leaves with the silk is where the weaving comes in. The nests may last for years because when one leaf dies the ants will just weave in another living one. The nests are larger enough to house thousands of ants, but the weaver ants don’t have just one nest in the tree. They travel all over the tree that they call home, so they often build other trees op tents so they can maximize their resources. They don’t stick to one central nest, they have the ability to move around when they need to. One territory can have multiple nests. The queen is often in a nest that is the most centralized to the territory, but her eggs are distributed throughout all the nests. With all of these spread out workers, Weaver ants have to have an excellent communication strategy. And boy, do they! Earlier we learned that pheromones are integral to ant communication. It’s the same with weaver ants, but they have a specialized gland that helps the pheromones that they use to create their paths last longer than terrestrial ants. They have an anal gland that helps them make their poop a bit more than just poop. To keep their pathways from wearing away too quickly, weaver ants use their feces to create longterm smell paths. The droplets of worker excrement hardens into a shellac like substance that can last for months. This form of communication also allows these ants to do something most other ants do not, defend a specific territory. Weaver ants are known to defend their treetop territories from other ants they encounter. With the pheromone lines drawn already it gives them an advantage in skirmishes. Their scent is already laid down. If a weaver ant encounters an enemy worker, she will race back to more familiar territory to recruit help. She does this by mimicking fighting motions and other workers will follow her prepared for battle. So what do weaver ants eat? This species of ant is omnivorous. They eat both meat and veggies. One of the coolest things they target is nectaries created by trees. These are spots on the leaves of trees that seep nectar. This isn’t like the sap that leaks from ...
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    10 mins
  • Ants: Farmers

    Ants: Farmers
    Oct 22 2025
    Summary? Can ants be farmers? Join Kiersten to find out! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. Can ants be farmers? In this episode we are going to find out. The sixth thing I like about ants is their farming abilities. You may have heard of leafcutter ants. These are ants that cut leaves and carry them back to their colony. They are often highlighted in nature television programs. It’s mesmerizing and charming watching a line of ants traveling with various sizes of leaf pieces held above their heads. Leafcutters will fall into one of two genera: Acromyrmex and Atta. There are 39 species that we currently know of and they are all found in the New World. Atta are most prevalent in the tropics of South America but there are two species that can be found in North America, one in Texas and Louisiana and one in Arizona. Leafcutter ant nests can extend 7 meters, or 22 feet, into the earth and contain eight thousand chambers. The largest chamber is typically the ant waste chamber which is buried as far down as they can make it. The title of this episode is farmers so how does that relate to our leafcutter ants? Well, leafcutter ants are farmers. I used to think that they cut those little pieces of leaves to eat themselves, but that is not what they are doing. They take the leaves back to their nest where they feed it to fungus. They tend the fungus like farmers and then they eat the fungus, or rather the larvae eat the fungus. So I guess every leaf cutter ant eats the fungus at some point in their life. The adult workers ants eat the sap from the leaf fragments that they cut. This is what energizes them to process the leaves. The leaves have to be mulched first before it is fed to the fungus. The fungus will grow and grow and grow in the leafcutter nest. It will fill up the majority of the chambers with a lightweight spongy structure that kind of looks like a human brain and is called a fungus garden. The ants tend the fungus by adding new leaves to the top and sides while they removed the older bottom portions. It is unusual that ants are completely dependent on vegetation, but leafcutter ants are. The fungus is actually high in protein and that helps the larvae grow big and strong. The largest nest that Mark Moffett ever came across during his studies was in the Kaw Mountains of French Guiana. The above ground soil mounds were chest high and ranged over a 14 meter wide area. It ranged over about 160 square meters in total. If we compared this to a human made structure, it would be bigger than the Empire State Building in New York City. This nest probably housed millions of workers. A nest of this size can require an excavation of 40 tons of soil. It must house the queen, the brood, and the workers but even with millions of ants it’s the fungus gardens that take up most of the real estate. The ant population can weigh up to 15 to 20 kilograms and utilize 280 kilograms of leaves. That’s enough plant matter to blanket a soccer field. Now, this is a lot of living things inside an enclosed space, so it gets hot and humid. To combat increasing heat and humidity which slows down fungal growth, the ants have installed air conditioning ducts. The long tunnels that open above ground are placed strategically around the nest to release humidity and heat. If it get too cold, the tunnels will be closed off. The only reason leafcutter ant nests can support millions of workers is because they are farmers. Just like humans, farming allows the ants to support a larger population by creating their own resources. These ants use incredibly advanced farming techniques. Humans will use various farming equipment to produce large quantities of crops, but for leafcutter ants its all hands on deck. The ants within this species are highly polymorphic, meaning sizes between workers vary greatly depending on your job. The largest soldier ant is 200 times bigger than that of a small worker. These colonies are run like assembly lines of self-directed individuals. Many steps are managed by ants in a variety of sizes. Mid-size workers cut the foliage, carry it into the nest, and deposit it onto the garden ...
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    11 mins
  • Ants: Anatomy

    Ants: Anatomy
    Oct 16 2025
    Summary: Let’s talk ant anatomy! Join Kiersten as she discusses basic ant anatomy, as well as a few unbelievable anatomy specializations. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Ant Body Structure” - Harvard Forest: https://harvardforest.fas.harvard.edu “Ant Anatomy” - Ask a Biologist, Arizona State University: https://askabiologost.asu.edu/explore/ant-anatomy “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. So far we have talked about some extraordinary ant behaviors and we have so much more to explore, but I thought we should look at an individual ant before we move forward. The fifth thing I like about ants is their anatomy. Ants are classified as insects, so they have three body parts: head, thorax and abdomen. They have an exoskeleton made of chitin. Chitin is the second most abundant amino polysaccharide polymer found in nature. It is hard and protects the internal organs of insects and gives their body structure. The head of an ant typically hosts two compound eyes, two antennae, two mandibles and a mouth on the outside while internally it houses the brain. Many species also have ocelli in the middle of the head, as well. The compound eyes contain hundreds of lenses that combine to form a single image. Species that use vision to hunt for prey will have larger compound eyes, while those that rely on other senses will have smaller compound eyes. All species of known ants have antennae, typically two. The antennae will be constantly moving as the ant tastes, touches, and smells everything it comes in contact with. The antennae will bend in the middle like a human elbow allowing maximum flexibility. Mandibles are super important to ants and they will vary by species. Some of them are extremely specialized and we will go through a few of those species in a moment. In general, mandibles are used to grasp anything ants need to pick up or carry. They are also used to bite, crush, cut, dig, fight, and hunt. Just behind the mandibles is the mouth which is used to eat, clean themselves, and groom nestmates. The last item on the head is the ocelli. Ocelli are simple eyes that detect light. Ant head shape will vary greatly between species and that is dependent on what they eat and how they build nests. The second segment is the mesosoma. Now, I just said ants have three segments and the second segment was the thorax, right? I did and this is technically correct, but the last two segments aren’t clearly visible. The mesosoma actually contains the thorax and the front of the abdomen. The mesosoma segment is full of muscles and is where the legs attach to the ant’s body. Ants have six legs. Their legs are made for movement and most ants can run fast when needed. Each leg has four segments and a hooked claw at the end of each leg helps the ant climb and hang onto surfaces. The third segment is the abdomen which is made up of the petiole and the gaster. This is the segment that contains all the important internal organs that keep the ant alive, besides the brain which is located in the head. The heart, the digestive tract, and the chemical weaponry is all found in the gaster. The chemical defense system will vary by species. Ants can have a stinger with which to inject venom into prey or predator or they may have a small opening through which they can spray acid to stun prey or defend themselves. In between the mesosoma and the gaster is the petiole. This structure attaches the mesosoma and the gaster together giving the ant enough flexibility to sting or spray acid in different directions. Some species of ants will have a second attachment segment called the post-petiole. Ant can have separate classes of workers, major and minor workers. They perform different activities. Minors typically take care of the young, clean and build the nest, and gather food. Majors are often soldiers, guarding and defending the colony. Some species will have size differences between these castes and can have modified anatomy to fit their specific jobs. Queen anatomy is slightly different as they are the only ant in the colony making babies. The body will still have three segments, like an other ant as well as all other anatomical parts we have ...
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    12 mins
  • Ants: Slave-makers

    Ants: Slave-makers
    Oct 8 2025
    Summary: Did you read that title right? Yes, you did. Some ants make slaves of other ants! Join Kiersten to find out how. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants” by Mark W. Moffett Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. In the last episode we talked about communication and how pheromones allow ants to give each other important messages and instructions. This is an amazing adaptation that makes them one if the most efficient organisms on the planet, but it does have a downside. Relying on pheromones as your main source of communication can lead to loop holes that others will take advantage of and by that I mean enslavement. Yep! Some ants enslave other ants. It’s not exactly something I like, but it is incredibly interesting. So, the fourth thing I find interesting about ants is how they use and misuse pheromones to their greatest advantage. We discussed how ants know who is allowed to come in and out of a colony in the last episode. When ants emerge from their pupal stage their body oils absorb the unique smells of their colony. This gives them the key to re-enter their colony when they venture out, and it helps protect the colony from intruders, but it can also be used to enslave them. Let’s find out exactly how this works. The workers of ant species specialized to be slave-makers will raid colonies of other species. Workers from Polyergus lucidus or Formica subintegra will raid the colony of a vulnerable species such as Formica subsericea. When they raid the colony they have one target, the pupae. The adults of the colony being raided certainly put up a fight and ants on both sides of the battle will lose their lives but the raiders will retrieve at least some of the pupae they were after. That pupae is taken back to the raiders colony and settled in with the nursery there. Within a few days or weeks, the raided ants will emerge and soak up the scent of their new colony. They believe this is their home. It’s where they are meant to be. They accept the raiders as their sisters and the raiders accept them as their own. So, the enslavement isn’t like what we think of from the human perspective. It is a bit more like capture and domestication of wild animals. In the north temperate zones of North America, Europe, and Asia ant slavery is common especially in the subfamily Formicinae. Oddly, slavery is known in only temperate areas. Five species of Polyergus ants are known to be slave-makers and these ants range across North America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. All of them enslave ants in the genus Formica. Let’s follow a specific raid detailed by Mark W. Moffett in his book Adventures Among Ants. At Sagehen Creek Field Station in the Sierra Nevada of the United States, Moffett and his graduate student watched a raid between Polyergus breviceps, also known as Amazon ants, and Formica argentea. The Amazons were raiding the Formica colony. They watch as the Amazons forced their way inside the Formica colony and then head out the other side with the pupae of the Formica. They flipped a rock to find out what was going on inside and expected to see a war going on between the raiders and the Formica, but that is not what they saw at all. The only fight they saw was one Formica ant in a tug of war with a n Amazon over a pupa, but all the other Formica were just walking around, business as usual. These species of Formica only fight raiders by putting up blockades of dirt. Once the raiders destroy those blockades and enter the colony, the residents just give up and let the Amazons raid the nursery. Mark and his student followed the Amazons back to their own colony and were amazed at what they saw. The Amazons were greeted by adult Formica slaves that took the pupae that they’d just raided from them and scuttled off with the stolen pupae. Other adult Formica ants exited the Amazon colony and picked-up the raiding party and carried them back into the colony where they would be waited on hand and foot. The majority of the time, the Amazons never did anything for themselves they just laid around maybe grooming one of their sisters as the Formica slaves did everything in the colony. A quote from Moffett’s book explains everything we need to ...
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    11 mins
  • Ants: Communication

    Ants: Communication
    Oct 1 2025
    Summary: How do ants organize all those colony residents? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing answer to this question. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. I feel like we have already talked about so much cool stuff about ants and we are only on episode three. This is going to be quite an exciting series on ants. The third thing I like about ants is how they communicate. Most of us have probably seen a line of ants moving from one place to another at some point in our lives. We may have stopped to take a look and wonder what they were doing or just walked on by without too much of a second thought. Either way, your brain probably took a moment to puzzle over what they were doing, where they were going, or how they knew where to go. Communication is the key! So, how do ants communicate? Two types of chemical substances lead ants through their lives. Pheromones which are chemical substances passed back and forth between individuals of the same species and allomones which are chemical substance used by other species and used by social invertebrates to hunt prey or avoid being prey. A quote from Edward O. Wilson about ant communication states, “Among all of the organisms that live by smell and taste, ants are the virtuoso of chemical communication.” End quote. Just a heads up, of you haven’t already figured this out, I will be quoting E.O. Wilson a lot in this series, but he’s learned so much about ants and he is always eager to share that I just can’t help myself. Ants have created a unique chemosensory world that no other creature known to humans can surpass. Let’s look first at how those ants traveling in a line know exactly where to go? When an ant colony needs resources they send out scouts to find what they need. When a scout finds what they want, they eat or drink their fill and run back to the nest in as straight a line as possible. The scout always knows where her nest is regardless of how far away they have traveled (we will discuss this in a moment). When she arrives at the nest, the scout will puke all over the floor. No serious, she will gurp up a small portion of what she ingested in front of a few ants and then turn around an head back. Some of her sisters will immediately follow her out. But why? She just came in the house threw up all over the floor and then left! What is going on? When that scout regurgitated the resource she found she created a pheromone that simply stated, “I’ve found what we need! Here it is! Follow my trail to find more!” Who can resist an invitation like that? The original scout laid a scent trail for herself by dragging her stinger along the ground to follow back to the resource and now her fellow workers will also follow that trail to help gather more of what they want. E.O. Wilson encourages you to experiment with some sugar water to see this phenomenon for yourself. You can use a drop of sugar water near a line of ants and watch what happens when they find it! Please use common sense if you choose to do this. Be careful to keep yourself and the ants safe from harm. How do ants identify these chemical signals? Do they have a nose to sniff them out? Sort of. They do not have a nose like a mammal that sticks out on the front of their face. They have antennae. These structures are attached to the heads and protrude out into the environment. The first segment of the antenna is called the scape and it is typically the longest and support the other shorter segments. Collectively this structure is called the funiculus. The funiculus is the “nose” of the ant. It is covered in tiny hairs, knobs, and plates, that detect various chemical substances. The funiculus neurologically transmits the identity and quantity of the substance to the brain. The information transferred to the ant’s brain must be analyzed in a matter of seconds with unerring precision to ensure survival of the individual and, more importantly, the colony. Based on the sensory information received, the ant chooses her actions quickly and decisively relying on instinct and current circumstances. If you watch a line of worker ants traveling out and back to the colony, you won’t notice how they are ...
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    12 mins
  • Ants: Origins

    Ants: Origins
    Sep 17 2025
    Summary: Ants are some of the most misunderstood animals on Earth. Join Kiersten as she begins a new series about these fascinating insects. For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Adventures Among Ants,” by Mark W. Moffett “In Search of Ant Ancestors,” by Ted R. Schultz, Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 Dec 5;97(26):14028–14029. doi: 10.1073/pnas.011513798 “The abundance, biomass, and distribution of ants on Earth,” by Patrick Schultheiss, Sabine S Nooten, Runxi Wang, and Benoit Gurnard. PNAS, 119 (40) e2201550119, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2201550119 Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… This is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. My name is Kiersten and I have a Master’s Degree in Animal Behavior and did my thesis on the breeding behavior of the Tri-colored bat. I was a zookeeper for many years and have worked with all sorts of animals from Aba Aba fish to tigers to ravens to domesticated dogs and so many more in between. Many of those years were spent in education programs and the most important lesson I learned was that the more information someone has about a particular animal the less they fear them. The less they fear them the more they crave information about them and before you know it you’ve become an advocate for that misunderstood animal. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. This is the beginning of a new series about a misunderstood animal that every one of us has encountered. Ants. Ants are one of the most misunderstood animals on the planet but they are so fascinating and very successful. In this series we are going to find out what makes them tick. The first thing I like about ants is their origins. As I begin this series I actually have a red, angry fire ant bite on my thumb. The irony is not lost on me that I am about to embark on a ten episode series dedicated to lauding the amazing attributes of ants to lure you into loving them while I have an itchy, painful welt from an ant bite on my thumb. These animals are truly fascinating so I bet I can get you to fall in love with them despite the nasty bites we’ve probably all experienced. Let’s get started from the beginning shall we? The classification of ants is as follows: Kingdom Animalia (Animals) Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods): invertebrate animals that have a segmented body and jointed appendages Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods): a six-legged arthropod Class Insecta (Insects) Order Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps and Sawflies) Superfamily Formicoidea (Ants) Family Formicidae (Ants) The scientific names will vary based on species. When did ants first appear on the planet? They have been on the planet between 100 -150 million years ago. The specific timing has been hotly debated for many years until and amber sample was found by some rock hounds in 1966. This sample was discovered in Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey in the United States. It seemed an unlikely place to find what scientists needed to determine the origins of ants and it took twenty more years after the initial discovery to clarify whether this sample was of an ant or not. In 1986, it was confirmed to be the amber fossil of an ant solidifying the origins of ants in the mid-Cretaceous period, 90-94 million years ago. By the mid-Eocene period, approximately 50 million years ago, ants had achieved their current level of abundance. How many ants are on the planet today? In the summer of 2018, Edward O. Wilson, one of, if not the, foremost experts in the study of ants said in his book, Tales from the Ant World, that there are 15,438 species of ants in the world that have been recognized and given a Latinized name. Edward O. Wilson described 450 of known species of ants so I think we can take his word for when he says he’s fairly certain there are approximately 25,000 species in existence today. A study published in 2022, says 15,700 species of ants have been identified. The numbers do see to be going up! The ant taxonomists working at Harvard University which has the world’s largest collection of ants believe the figure to be between 25,000 to 30,000 different species of ants. To sum it up, there are a lot of ant species out there! Ants actually make up two-thirds of all insect life on Earth. We don’t know have many individual ants are walking around on the Earth at this very moment, but it is in the billions possibly trillions. They are found on every single continent except Antarctica, but as soon as they figure out how to live in snow and ice, they’ll be there ...
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    8 mins
  • Ants: Life of a Colony

    Ants: Life of a Colony
    Sep 24 2025
    Summary: How do ants create new colonies? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing way new ant colonies are born! For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean Show Notes: “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Ant Biology” Ants Canada, https://www.antscanada.com Music written and performed by Katherine Camp Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops) Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating. This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. On to episode two of ants, listeners! The second thing I like about ants is the life of a colony. I had no idea how complicated the life a colony was when I started researching this topic. Each species of ant will have specifics that differ based on how they obtain resources and where they choose to live, but the basic structure of the life cycle of a colony is essentially the same for all ants. It all begins with a virgin queen. When a colony reaches a certain size, and that size varies with each species, the current queen will lay an egg, or several, that will develop into a new young queen. She will develop wings, and as soon as she is able, will take flight from the existing colony. Her first flight is also her nuptial flight. She will emerge form the colony structure and alight on a leaf or rock and release a pheromone that says “Hello! Here I am!” And the males will come flying. Typically they want to mate with males of a different colony, but when males are scarce they will mate with males of their own colony. Diverse genetics is not something most insects have to worry about like mammals must. Depending on the species, the queen will mate with one or multiple males. Regardless, the queen will mate only once in her life. Sometimes mating takes place in the air and sometimes it takes place on that leaf or rock. Either way, they will each go their separate ways once the deed is done. The queen will wonder off looking for the perfect place to start her new life while the male, having completed the only thing he was born to do, will die or become food for a predator. Sorry, gentleman. For the new queen, no longer a virgin but with a spermatheca full of sperm (a quick aside: a spermatheca is a pouch in the abdomen where queen ants store the sperm obtained during mating) she follows her instincts to find the best home for her new colony. Based on species it could be a rotten log, a perfect dirt mound, a tree branch, or any number of other places. If she survives the nuptial flight, and that is a big IF, and she finds the perfect colony-building site, another big IF, she will break off her wings and settle in to begin pumping out eggs. It can take a queen anywhere from 24 hours to a week to lay eggs. The first eggs laid will be the first workers in the colony, so…they will be female. That’s right! It’s a woman’s world in the ant universe. Disney Pixar’s A Bug’s Life is wrong, it would have been a female ant that saved the day while the males just laid around doing nothing! All working ants in a colony are female. And here comes the harsh truth about the males: According to E. O. Wilson, one of the foremost authorities on ants in the world, quote “Adult males, with the exception of competing for access to virgin queens, and the food and grooming they receive from their sister workers, are pathetic creatures.” End quote. Males have small brains and big genitalia. They are only necessary during the nuptial flight and mating success is not guaranteed, only death is guaranteed. Once again, gentleman, I’m sorry, but it is a pampered life of eating and eating until it’s time to go have some intimate time with a queen, so maybe it’s not so bad, even if it is a short, short existence. Let’s say our queen has been successful and she is on her way to creating her colony. Eggs have been laid, once they hatch she will clean and feed them as larva until they become pupa and then turn into adult ants. These ants will be workers, probably a combination of some minors, that will stay in the nest to care for the queen and more eggs, and some majors that will exit the colony in search of food and water. Once we are at this stage, the queen just keeps going. She will lay the eggs and the worker ants will keep the colony running. The various tasks performed by the worker ants varies by species, but you will typically have indoor and outdoor workers. In some species age determines your job. Young, new workers remain ...
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    10 mins