Glossary

  • Trophallaxis: social insects regurgitating food to other members of the colony
  • Mandible: the "teeth" of an insect; used for a variety of purposes by the insect (explained in more detail in the "Intro" page)
  • Acidopore: an organ located at the tip of the abdomen of ants to excrete formic acid (explained in more detail in the "Intro" page)
  • Stinger: an organ located at the tip of the abdomen of insects to inject venom into others (explained in more detail in the "Intro" page)
  • Antennae: sensory organs located at the head of the insect (explained in more detail in the "Intro" page)
  • Brood: ant eggs, larvae, and pupae.
  • Replete: a special type of ant that is used to store food. This type of ant is usually fed a ton of food, and serves as a food storage in times of low food availability. When other ants want a snack, all they need to do is to tell the replete to regurgitate the food stored in their abdomens!
  • Pleometrosis: when a multiple queens work together in the founding stage, but fight each other to death when the colony stage cannot be called founding anymore.
  • Haplometrosis: only one queen when a colony is at founding stage. There can be no more than one queen.
  • Monogyne (Monogynous): an ant colony that will only keep one queen. Once a monogyne colony has its first workers, the workers will kill all the queens (if there are multiple queens) until there is only one.
  • Polygyne (Polygynous): an ant colony that will keep all queens that participated in the founding stage (the start of the colony).
  • Oligogyne: in a mature nest, workers treat the fully functional queens in the same way. However, the queens are antagonistic towards each other and cannot tolerate each other, opting to stay in different spaces all over the nest. They continue to lay eggs.
  • Queen: one of the reproductive castes in an ant colony. It is the one responsible for laying eggs and starting future generations.
  • Drone: the other reproductive caste in an ant colony. They are responsible for fertilizing queens. After they mate, they die because there is no need for them anymore.
  • Minor & Major Workers in most ant colonies, there are two types of workers: Minor and Major workers. Minor workers usually take care of the brood, nest expansion, and other jobs around the nest. The majors, on the other hand, defend the nest from invaders, gather food, and protect minors when they gather food. They also sometimes carry heavy items.
  • Formic Acid:a type of acid used by ants. It has a pH of 2.2 (vinegar has a pH of 2.5, so formic acid is stronger than that).
  • Granivorous:diet that consists mainly of only of grains and seeds.
  • ICF: independent colony founding, where a queen does not rely on other species to start a colony. (i.e. a queen ant flies from her home colony and starts a new colony somewhere else with other queens of the same species. They are not parasitic.
  • DCF: dependent colony founding, where a queen relies on the same or other species to start a colony. (i.e. a queen ant flies from her home colony and starts invading an existing colony elsewhere to start her own)
  • Nocturnal: most active during the night.
  • Diurnal: most active during the day.
  • Budding: a type of colony founding that is neither semi-claustral nor fully-claustral. Ant colonies that started by budding use DCF.
  • Polydomic: the same ant colony harbouring many nests. Many of the nests that are not the parental nest (where the queen started the colony) are "satellite" nests.
  • Monodomic: the same ant colony harbouring only one nest. This nest is usually the one where the queen first tarted the colony, unless the colony has moved.
  • Monomorphic: having only one worker caste. This means, an ant colony that is monomorphic has only one type of worker.
  • Polymorphic: having multiple worker caste. For example, Leafcutter Ants have "minims", "minors", "mediae", "majors", and "super-majors" that are all workers. It is worth noting that the reproductive caste are not considered workers.
  • TSP: temporary social parasitism, which is a type of colony founding.
  • Supercolony: a group of colonies of the same species that have little to no aggresion towards each other. A supercolony basically combines all individual colonies within it to become one.