You might be wondering how ants could be so quick to find bread crumbs or leftover sweets on the table. How exactly do these tiny creatures know where to find food?
Ant Facts
Ants live together in homes known as anthills. These are usually small piles of sand that are covered with crawling ants.
These creatures also come with different jobs. The big ant is known as the queen, which does the work of laying all the eggs that are to hatch into baby ants. When it comes to caring for the queen ant, this task is done by all the males. Both the male ants and the queen ants rarely leave the anthill.
The remaining ants are known as workers. They perform different tasks, including constructing tunnels for anthills, guarding the anthill, and searching for food outside of the anthill in order to bring back food for the males and the queen.
These worker ants do the hard work. They must be able to find sufficient food for themselves, the males, the queen, and even the baby ants.
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How Ants Find Food
Worker ants are loaded with specialized skills that aid them in finding bountiful food. When worker ants set out to look for food, they make use of their great auditory senses to sniff out any food items in the vicinity.
However, unlike humans, these ants make use of their antennae to perform this smell function. These antennae can even outperform the noses of humans, as they are capable of picking up smells that the human nose cannot detect.
When worker ants pick up some tasty smells, they follow the source of the smell until they reach the food source. Once the worker ant knows where the food source is, she then makes use of her eyes to examine what is close to the food. It could be something like a picnic blanket or a tree.
If the worker needs to find food once more in the future, she will search for these landmarks or items until she finds the source of food once more.
Ant Diet
Most ants are omnivorous when it comes to their diet. This means that they consume animals, plants, and different things.
As the different foods ants may want to eat vary in smell, the worker ant can distinguish the smell of the one she may want to bring back to the anthill.
These creatures are also lovers of sugar, which explains why they tend to go after crumbs of sweet treats.
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