7 replies to this topic

[AntsInSpace]

Hi guys,

 

Pretty straight forward question, when a princess ant goes out on the nuptial flight to mate, what happens to it when it doesn't find a drone ?

I don't know if the princesses mate with drones from their own colony, from what I understand they prefer to travel far as to avoid this. Which means it might be possible, but yeah.. what if they don't find one ? 

[Martialis]

They will try to found another colony, but will ultimately fail. They are only capable of producing males.

Edited by Martialis, April 21 2018 - 7:59 AM.

[AntsInSpace]

Holy cow, so they will try to find another colony. And then it's just a matter of, do these different species of ants get along ? and if it's the same species in the newfound colony the ant will join. Man that's interesting.. wait, ultimately fail ? cmon even today I saw two colonies real close to one another.

 

Alright, yes they will only be capable of producing males(was wondering about that), but capable does not mean they will produce males, from what I understand they won't bother right ? 

You said in the other thread that unless the colony is stable and there's sufficient food sources and such, then the queen won't produce those eggs. So the queen will simply die shortly after. 

[Martialis]

Holy cow, so they will try to find another colony. And then it's just a matter of, do these different species of ants get along ? and if it's the same species in the newfound colony the ant will join. Man that's interesting.. wait, ultimately fail ? cmon even today I saw two colonies real close to one another.

 

Alright, yes they will only be capable of producing males(was wondering about that), but capable does not mean they will produce males, from what I understand they won't bother right ? 

You said in the other thread that unless the colony is stable and there's sufficient food sources and such, then the queen won't produce those eggs. So the queen will simply die shortly after. 

 

Not find, found, as in "to lay the foundations of". This  means she would attempt to dig a chamber in which she would lay her first eggs and tend to them until the adults eclosed (hatched) from their pupae. 

 

The queen doesn't really control what the eggs are. The caste of the ant is determined by how much food is given to it during its larval stage.  

 

Ants, unlike many other animals, don't require eggs to be fertilized in order to lay them. If they are not fertilized via mating, they are haploid (having only have the chromosomes) and male, versus female and diploid (having both sets of chromosomes).  The queen really isn't able to reason that they aren't fertilized. As such, they will attempt to create another colony anyways.

[AntsInSpace]

I see, and since drones don't care for their queen as female minor workers do, she will die from hunger.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me. 

[nurbs]

Hi guys,

 

Pretty straight forward question, when a princess ant goes out on the nuptial flight to mate, what happens to it when it doesn't find a drone ?

I don't know if the princesses mate with drones from their own colony, from what I understand they prefer to travel far as to avoid this. Which means it might be possible, but yeah.. what if they don't find one ? 

 

Each drone carries with them a glass slipper. Once they take off, the princess ants file in a straight line and try on the glass slipper. If it fits, they make mad passionate love, right there, on the spot. If not, the princess ants keep their wings and eventually die. It's kind of sad, actually.

 

Just kidding. They are called ALATES, both the male and female. No such thing as a princess ant, though it has a funny ring to it.

 

Once the queen mates and becomes fertile, she takes off her wings and becomes a DEALATE. Unlike bees, there are no "drones" for ants.

 

If a female alate does not mate and become fertile during the nuptial flight, she hangs around for a week or two and either dies or gets eaten by something else. In more a colloquial conversation, antkeepers will usually just say "going anting this weekend, hoping to find some queens!", which generally means they are looking for dealates that have just flown.

[AntsInSpace]

Yes they are called alates due to them having wings, but many many many websites call the future queen ants 'princesses' before they are mated, it makes sense to me. And the males are called drones too, why a drone ? I don't know. But every website that breaks down the castes of an ant species calls the male ants drones. And when they refer to the ants that are waiting upon a nuptial flight, they call them the alates. 

[Serafine]

Queens are also often called gynes to reflect that they aren't an acutal ruling caste - in fact ant colonies are ruled by the workers to a point where they enlsave queens or choose which queen to keep from a group of founding queens. Princess however is a term that's very rarely used, usually unmated queens are called virgin queens.

Referring to males as drones is actually correct, ant males fit all criteria for being a drone - they can't care for themselves and are esentially just sperm-loaded queen-seeking cruise missiles bred for the sole purpose of mating with a female during a nuptial flight (there are some exceptions like wingless males that occupy territories with in a colony for some species but generally most male ants are the perfect example of insect drones).