When you hear that word, you must have thought about the world of people. But again every species can have a society whether it is the largest one or the smallest one. Despite their small size, ants or Formicidae, those insects that are hardly and very active, have one of the most thrilling societies among animals. In each colony there is an exclusively reproductive female which is called a queen and the structure of ant’s society is unique and rather specified, it consists of more than ten thousand species. It will be of a higher importance if we consider differences and roles between the male and female ants.
Shape Male Ant vs. Female Ant:
Still, bearing in mind the fact that male ants almost do not exist in comparison with the number of females, their shapes and sizes can be compared. Workers themselves vary greatly in size and the smallest bureaucrats that are recognized are commonly referred to as minor workers. Major workers differ significantly from minor workers, with major workers being two times bigger or even more, proportional for their big head and, in some cases, large mandibles for the construction of their defense. For instance Soldier ants belong to this category.
The queen will be the largest ant in the colony and normally she only lays eggs. This is due to her large tummy which is actually part of her reproductive system and also the muscles we will be using to flap her wings. In any case, though, her wings are to be ripped off after the act of copulation!
A male ant will look much like a slightly smaller queen: he also has wings even though he is a male and he is bigger than minor or major worker ants. Males also have small heads, large eyes, and straight antennae than any other of this caste, queens in particular.
Roles Male Ant vs. Female Ant:
Out of the total ant birth, most of the ant born are female. In all the worker ants that you encounter in lines, some moving around to hunt for food or construct those channels in the ant enclosure, all of them are female. Ants are such hardworking creatures and whether one’s duty entails guarding the queen, foraging for food, controlling the rest of the ants, or cleaning the colony, well all you get are females. And these workers will never be able to have children.
Yet one female ant also sits at the top of every colony: the queen of the day or queen of the week – there are many queens since it has become fashionable to address women as queens. This particular individual is normally the female ant larva in the particular generation in question who managed to consume most of the protein when developing into a grown-up. This means that she is the biggest, she is strong and has most potential of producing eggs and as such every ant society looks forward to feeding and protecting the queen as this determines the next generation of ants. A queen gets to the stage of having a mature colony that is usually dominated by sterile ants and will then start producing a generation of ants that are capable of reproducing. These ants will extend to other places, start new colonies all on their own.
Length of Life Male Ant vs. Female Ant:
The male ants have a very short lifetime of about 7 days or that are even shorter and their only function is to provide sperm for the purpose of reproduction. The average worker, as I said all women, stay alive for approximately one year. Nevertheless, as it will be shown below, a queen can actually survive and perhaps lay eggs, for approximately 25-29 years.
