How Do Ants Communicate?

Posted by TermMax Pest Control on December 2nd, 2020

We live in a vast ecosystem.  This ecosystem is filled with tiny insects each fighting for their little piece of the cake, sometimes figuratively and sometimes literally.  But when it comes to organization, ants rule the roost.  They preform all sorts of activities like hunting, gathering, feeding their huge numbers, and even protecting their nest without uttering a word.  So, how do ants communicate?  Ants communicate to one another using a technique called pheromone signaling.  These signals are detected by each individual ant through smell.   

Ants have a very highly developed sense of smell.   They use this sense of smell to communicate.  Known as eusocial insects, these creatures live in a large colony and play a unique role in day to day life.  In order to better the colony, each ant fits into a caste, defining its daily tasks.   

THEIR AMAZING SCENT ABILITY

Ants don’t have noses, so they use their antenna to smell.  In fact, scientists have found that ants have more olfactory receptors, or cells dedicated to smell, than any other species of insect.  Most insects have between 20 and 60 olfactory receptors, but the mighty ant have around 400.  Even though they are great at smelling, that doesn’t mean that they are equal.  In this area, scientists have found that females have more smell sensitivity.  This is because the females need this sense more.  The males in the colony are few in number, and only act in a reproductive role.  The females, on the other hand, make up the worker caste, and therefor need it more.  

Finding food, transporting it, feeding the larvae, and protecting the colony are in a days work for a worker ant.  Without their sense of smell, ants could not navigate and complete the tasks needed to survive.  As an ant goes out looking for food, it leaves a trail of pheromones.  This scent trail can be followed by other ants.  When two ants find the same food source, but one took the scenic route, the longer route ant’s scent trail will have faded.  Ants instinctively choose to follow the stronger scent, being the more efficient route.  As these ants follow the pheromone trail, they leave their own pheromones, strengthening the scent. After a while, the longer scent will have grown cold.   Contact your Oklahoma exterminator for help getting rid of ants.  

THE ANT SUPER ORGANISM

Ants are organized in a system known as a eusocial system.  In a eusocial system, each ant takes a role in the day to day operations of the colony.  This creates a super organism functioning as a single unit.  Scientists are still not sure exactly how these insects know instinctively what to do.  But however they do it, their smelling ability plays a major role.  Ants can actually recognize each other by their pheromones.  They can easily identify enemy ants, and ants from another colony or species.  Your Tulsa exterminator company can give you an estimate to eliminate ants from your home.  

Ants have a three tier cast system.  The queens, which are much larger than the other ants, lay the eggs for the colony.  The queen will spend her entire life laying eggs, and can lay as many as a million eggs in her lifetime.  Females destined to become queens are known as reproductives.  They will have wings that they use to find a mate outside of their original colony.  Finding a male, they will go and create a new colony.  Males spend the entirety of their short lives fertilizing eggs.  The workers are left with all of the leftover tasks required to build and maintain the colony.  Contact your local Oklahoma pest control company for assistance.  

REMOVING ANTS FROM YOUR HOME

If you are finding ants in your home, there is help.  Your Tulsa pest control company can eliminate them for you.  Here at TermMax Pest Control, we can take care of all of your pest problems, including ants, at a reasonable cost.  Contact us today, and we will get you a free estimate.  We’re here to help!