1. Housing: Ants generally build nests underground, and the underground nests are very large. It has good drainage and ventilation measures. Generally worker ants are responsible for building the nest. Most of the entrances and exits are small arched mounds with a hole in the middle like a volcano. Secondly, there are holes for ventilation, and each room in the nest is clearly classified. Warm, moist soil is their favorite. They usually live in dry areas, but what's less known is that they can barely survive in water for up to two weeks.
Ants (6 photos)
2. Lifespan: Ants have a long lifespan. Worker ants can live from several weeks to several years, and queen ants can live for several years or even ten years. An ant nest can grow in one place for 1 to 10 years. But most of the new queens will die!
3. Food habits: The food habits of ants can be simply divided into the following categories: carnivorous, omnivorous and partial to carnivorous, omnivorous and partial to vegetarian, and vegetarian.
Carnivorous: It is best to use insects as the main food. There are fewer types of purely carnivorous ants in the proportion of ants, but each type of carnivorous ant has different preferences for food, so not all Insects can be used as food for all carnivorous ants. Therefore, it is necessary to prepare the kind of insect that the ant likes to eat when raising it. Otherwise, it will often cause the ant to mistakenly think that the food is enough, but the ant will not eat or starve to death. Therefore, if the food that the ant likes cannot be prepared, It can be very frustrating to raise.
Omnivorous and partial carnivorous: The proportion of ants that are omnivorous and partial to carnivorous is relatively high. They can also eat vegetarian or meat. However, it is usually easier to attract them to eat meat, and they are hardly picky about insects. , Generally speaking, no one will be refused. When feeding, in addition to insects, animal protein foods can also be fed. Examples of available food are as follows: mainly carnivorous and dead insects, plus fruits and honeydew. When feeding, you can feed insects, fish (can be eaten raw), cooked pork, cooked chicken, etc.
Omnivorous and vegetarian ants: There are many overlaps between omnivorous and vegetarian ants and omnivorous and carnivorous ants. The only difference is that when insect corpses and sweet food appear at the same time, omnivorous and vegetarian ants are more likely to be eaten. Attracted by sweet tooth.
Vegetarian: The proportion of pure vegetarian ants among all ant species is not large. Some ants also only eat certain special plants or frugivorous juices. For example, foreign leaf-cutting ants even eat leaves. Bring fungi back to the nest and feed them as their only food. Therefore, raising this type of ants is just like raising purely carnivorous ants. You must first ensure that you can prepare food, otherwise it will be very frustrating.
4. Food intake: The key point is "not to overfeed", especially for the kind of ants that move as much food as they can and then return to the nest to enjoy it slowly. If they feed too much, they will It is easy to cause the food to expire and become moldy and spoiled in the nest, and it is more likely to attract small bugs that mainly eat carrion. When the time comes, it will be harmful to the eyes when they breed in the nest. If there are too many bugs, they may harm the larvae of ants. Safety. In addition, if the food source is live insects, there may be parasites or mites that have previously laid eggs on the food. The mites will multiply like a plague in the nest and be attached to every bite. On an ant and its larvae, the parasitized ant may be occupied by multiple mites at the same time, and usually it will not survive long. This also creates a fatal crisis for the entire community.
5. Know the way: Ants are swarming insects and live in groups. They each have their own home. Most ants' homes are below the ground, where they can't easily find abundant food. When the weather is sunny and warm, we often see groups of ants crawling busily on the ground. If you observe carefully, or if you sprinkle some bread crumbs in front of it, you will see: when they arrive at the food location, they begin to carry the delicious food you prepared for them. If one ant cannot move it, two, three, or more ants will come up together to carry it together. When they get food, they will crawl back home in an orderly manner along the way they came from, dragging the food back to storage for later meals. This is what pheromones do.