What happens to an ant colony when the queen dies?
Asked by
shego (
11093
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June 9th, 2011
from iPhone
I was watching a show about dangerous ants. One colony was moving to a different area, and the queen was with the colony while they moved. So I was wondering what would happen to the colony if something happened to the queen? Do they move to another colony? Or is there already a successor?
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5 Answers
They leave thier sand holes in the ground and find a new queen. Like civilizations millions of years ago.
“When the colony loses its queen, whether through old age, rebellion, human interaction or tragic natural circumstances, the colony is pretty much doomed.
Several colonies hail more than one queen. A single queen is the norm for some colonies, like those of the carpenter ant, but she can live up to 25 years, the Terro website said. Other types of ants are infested with queens. An Argentine ant colony may have hundreds of queens while a Pharoah ant colony may have thousands, according to the site.”
What Happens When a Queen Ant Dies?
Thanks @marinelife for the link. There’s some interesting information there.
Edward O. Wilson—the eminent Harvard evolutionary biologist and world expert on ants, now in his 80s—recently published his first work of fiction: Antill: A Novel, told (in part) from an ants’ point of view. He describes the death of a queen and subsequent takeover of the nest by another ant colony. Makes a good read. Wish I could remember all the details. At first, the ants don’t notice that the queen is dead…
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