Life among the ants

There are many references to ants in the works of the ancients (Aesop, Plutarch, Horace, Ovid and Pliny), and these were quoted and elaborated by the mediaeval authors, but mode...

The body of the ant, like those of other insects, is segmented, and covered with a hard chitinous external skeleton. It is separated by constrictions into three distinct parts,...

Like their relatives the bees and wasps, ants have developed two types of females, so that a colony contains three distinct sorts of individuals, known as males, females, and wo...

The works of Pliny and other ancient writers contain references to ants which collected great stores of seeds, and these accounts were quoted by numerous mediaeval authors. Mode...

In tropical and subtropical America there are about one hundred species and varieties of ants which have most extraordinary habits, and are grouped together in the Myrmicine tri...

Many species of ants are in the habit of collecting nectar from flowers, and the sweet juices excreted by plant-lice, until the crop is greatly swollen. When they arrive at the...

These insects, which Wheeler describes as “the Huns and Tartars of the insect world,” are found in tropical Africa and Asia, and in the warmer parts of America. There is a great...

The European ant known as _Formica sanguinea_ is blood-red in color, and is one of the most industrious, versatile, and belligerent insects known to man. This species, according...

Another type of slave-owning ants is represented by the genus _Polyergus_, found in both Europe and North America, and known as amazons. Slavery among the amazons is a very diff...

The peculiar symbiotic relations between ants and aphids is worth a brief description. The aphids or plant-lice live in colonies upon certain plants, and feed upon juices which...