Ants & Termites

ANTS

-Ants are a member of the wasp order, Hymenoptera, which includes sawflies and bees.

-Ants have different behaviour, food requirements and body structure. The termites body does not have this skinny part connecting it.

However they often occur in similar environments.

-Ants go through a complete metamorphosis i.e.; they go through 4 stages; egg, larva, pupa and adult. Neither stage resembles the other stages.

-Ants have 3 different forms of adult ant; the queen, the king and the workers.

-The king dies after mating.

- The males are called drones, they have permanently attached wings and only have an adult life span of a few days.

-The queen mates before she sets off to make her new colony.

-The queen ant can live up to 15 years.

-The workers are sterile and wingless females (unable to breed) who do all the work and defend the colony. They care for the young, seek and gather food and build the nests. The workers can be large or small and they live about 1 year.

-Ants build their nests in more variety of places.

This mound was seen at Lesmurdie near Perth.

-Some ant species leave a chemical trail to signal where they have found food.

-Ants have bent (or elbow) antennae. Both ants and termites can have mandibles-nippers.

-Ants have reproductives too. But they have strongly veined wings. The fore and hind wings are unequal in their length.

-Ants have tips on the ends of their antennae made up of sense organs that help them find their food and to communicate to one another.

These photographs are taken at 60x magnification.

-Worker ants have compound eyes and can see. Magnified 60 times.

TERMITES

- Termites belong to the order of Isoptera. In Australia there are 5 families and 348 species of termites.

-Termites do not go through a metamorphosis they look like their adults when young. They are a nymph when young and do not go through a pupa stage.

-Termites have 5 different forms of adult termites in the colony; The queen, the king, the worker, the soldier and the reproductive.

-The king doesn't die after mating. He fertilises the queen from time to time as required for production of the eggs.

-The queen and king fly off to find a new place for a new colony and then they mate.

Termite head magnified 60x.

-The queen termite of some species can live up to 50 years.

-The workers, soldiers, and reproductives have different jobs. See below for the details on roles of the termites.

- Termites do not leave a trail to communicate where they have been or should go.

- Termites have straight antennae.

- Worker and soldier termites are blind.

-Termites fore and hind wings are of the same size or length and the veins are not obvious.

The reason we can not show you many termite pictures is that we would have to go to the bush and pull open a nest, which we are not going to do. And also copyright prevents us from showing you pictures from other peoples books.

These termites were found in my yard but I don't know where the nest is. Because I live in an area that used to be swamp-land 30 years ago, we have always had problems with the wood destroying termites. So maybe we shouldn't build suburbs on top of swamps or old pine plantations?

They have mandibles (nippers)

Go Here to see our video on these termites

This is the termite underside magnified at 60 times. You can see the two pointy parts at the bottom of the picture, they are called the cerci and help to identify the different termites.

Ants

I apologise for the blurry photographs but they don't stay still and I don't catch them. Go Here to see our page on termites.

Queen Ants

Once a newly developed queen leaves her cocoon she mates in the air with the king or drone, she lands pulls off her wings and starts her new colony. She has to take care of the first batch of eggs as there are no workers yet until they have gone through the life cycle and emerge from their cocoons.

The larger queen has a certain smell about her that keeps the colony in order. She emits a smell called pheromones that is a unique smell to that colony.

Eggs

The eggs are laid by the queen and looked after by the workers who clean and move them to places in the nest where the temperature is right for hatching.

Larvae

It only takes a few days for the eggs to hatch. The larvae are unable to collect their own food so the workers bring them honey-dew and bits of insects. The larvae eat a lot as they will soon go into a pupa and will not eat. The larvae spins silk from their salivary glands and wraps it around their body, this is their cocoon.

Pupa

This is where the metamorphoses takes place. The larvae does not eat or move.

Adult worker

The adult ant will emerge. It has 3 main body parts, the head, thorax and the abdomen. Most of the ants in the colony are female workers, they may lay eggs but they will not be fertile and so wont hatch. Different workers do different jobs, there is a lot to do in a colony, it must be protected, cleaned, maintained and care for the eggs, larvae and the queen.

We know that when ever the reproductive ants are flying in the park that bad weather will follow within 48 hours. We see them around six times a year. Go Here to see our video of the reproductive, soilder and worker ants.
What has amazed me when I have seen this happen with the ants, is that over 100 swallow birds congregate at the park a few days before as if they anticipate that this massive flight of winged ants is going to happen. I have also see Black-faced cuckoo shrikes, Magpies, Wattles and Honey Eaters enjoying the feast of flying ants. Two different ant species have left at the same time and I also saw flying reproductives at Piney Lakes and Neerabup National Park on the same few days.

Bull Ant or Bulldog Ant Myrmecia
This is the entrance to a Bull ants nest at Brickley Brook Reserve Perth, W.A. Bull ants usually have less than 1,000 ants in their nest and it is the females and queen that give the nasty painful sting while they hold on with their jaws.
They are solitary hunters and catch (toes and fingers of those who poke sticks down their nests), small bugs and collect seeds. They do not leave a trail to the nest like other ants. These ants are unique to Australia and one of the biggest ants in the world. Males have wings but the soldiers and workers are wingless.
Bull ants are active during the day.

Go Hereto see our video of these Bull ants protecting their nest.

This is the under side of the bull ant, check out those nippers!

Here is a bull ant nest. Seen at Udamung Brook Reserve 25km south of New Norica. You can see the main entrance in the middle but a smaller entrance is to the left.

This is possibly a Sugar ant found in my garden.

Sugar Ants Camponotus sp
These ants are large like the bull ants but different in many ways. They are not aggresive and do not sting. They are orange with black heads and black tipped abdomens.
These ants follow marked trails of chemical left by others to follow. They are more active at night but can be seen in the day.
New colonies are started by winged adults leaving the colony.
Soldiers can give a nip with their powerful jaws but the workers have even bigger heads and jaws to carry food.
Go here to see a sugar ant

Meat Ants Iridomyrmex purpureus

I find these ants to be more obnoxious than the bull ants. I know you should never go for walks through the bush in thongs, but one time while staying overnight at Jarradale near Perth I took a short walk along the trail with my kids to the creek. We came across meat ants, first just in ones and two's, then more and more as we got closer to the nest. My feet were being bitten and you can't just shake these ants off, you have to pull them off but to do this you must stand still on one foot and you guessed it, they attack the other foot on the ground and so before long you are doing your own version of the 'Macarena'. I had no choice but to put my feet in the creek and as I had toilet paper with me I wrapped my feet in it and wet the paper to keep it on as we had to walk back through the ants to get back to camp.

Meat ants have an underground nest, usually using the pea gravel or small stones and can have hundreds of thousands of workers. The queen can rule her colony for up to15 years. These ants have worn out trails where they leave a chemical scent to let other workers know where to go in search of food.
Meat ants are active during the day.

Carpenter Ants
The Carpenter ants sometimes get blamed for damage found in the timber in your home, but they do not eat the wood. They like to live in decaying wood and come into your homes to feed on sweet foods.

Argentine Ants Formicidae
Go Here to see a picture of this ant

Army Ants Formicidae
Go here to see a picture of this ant

Honey Pot ant Melophorus bagoti
Go here to see movies of honey pot ants

Jumper Ants Myrmecia pilosula
Go here to see these ants.
I don't know if they are in W.A.

Cocktail Ant Crematogaster
Go here to read how important seed ants are to some plants

Seed harvesting ants. Some friends some foes.
Go here to see an article about these ants
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=cache:
HmbZwtMf1vsJ:envbio.curtin.
edu.au/J%2520M%2520%27s%2520homepage/
Lancare%2520Revegetation%
2520501%2520lects./LANDCARE%25
20REVEGETATION%2520%2520%25207
+Seed+harvesting+ant+in+australia&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Go here to see the Western Australian Agricultural Departments page on Fire Ants

This soldier ant was found in our local park in Perth.

This black ant was seen at the Monadnocks near Perth. Many antlions had built their pits around these underground nests.

This ant was on a flowering wattle tree at Dryandra near the wheat belt.

Flying ants wing magnified 200x.

This bright green ant was seen at Nullagine River in the Pilbara in December.

This reproductive ant was seen in Perth Hills

Although this photograph is blurry you can see this black ant has an orange furry abdomen. And it would not stay still for a photograph. This ant has also been seen at Udmung Reserve on the Great Northern Hwy.

This ant looks like it has a huge face with two large red eyes but this is its abdomen. It was found in my yard. I have also seen this ant at the Porongurup Ranges in the Great Southern Region in November.

This mound was seen in the Brickwood Reserve Byford

This is a photograph of the ant from the mound on the left magnified 60x.

These ants were found at Karijini National Park in late December before the heavy rains.

These ants or termites were seen at Fern Pool at Karijini National Park in the Pilbara.

We have also seen these ants at the Kennedy Ranges in the Gascoyne region.

This worker ant was found in my back yard. It has long skinny legs.

This is a Twig-mound ant nest at Perup W.A. This ant nest is often built under or near the Holly-leaf Banksia which flowers throughout the year providing the ants with nectar.

This ant is getting pollen or nectar from this Trigger plant at Jandakot Regional Park. Can you see the trigger arm on the right sprung back and ready to spring.

Beetles and ants were enjoying this flower at Mt Cooke near Perth in November.

This reproductive ant was energetically trying to move a stone on the path at Dryandra woodlands in April. Many reproductive ants were leaving their underground nests around sunset.

This reproductive ant was seen at Boyagin Rock in the wheatbelt in September.

This is not a donut but an ant mound near Carnarvon WA

These are the ants from this nest. The nest is covered with flower seeds.

A typical ant mound seen many times. This one seen at Jingemia Cave, Watheroo National Park in September.

This mound was seen at Mt Lesueur in September.

The ants here at Piney Lake in Perth have made a circle of flowers around the entrance of their underground nest.

On the right is a photo of the little ants.

Neerabup National Park Perth in July.

This large ant was seen on flowers at Badgingarra north of Perth in September. It was also seen at Mt Lesueur further north in September.

Here in Perth I have seen the reproductive ants all through the year, prior to a heavy rain period, at the park across the road from where I live. They leave in their thousands and take to the air to mate and to be blown away to start a new colony.

What's the biggest ant nest builder of the world? The Japanese wood ants build the biggest nests. One super-colony of Hokkaido in Japan has more than 306 million workers, 900,000 queens and covers an area of 3 square kilometres.

Go to our "Cool Games" section and try and put the Bulldog ant back together, its pretty hard.

Go here to see the CSIRO pages on Australian Ants. A great site for high school or university students.

What do you call an old ant? An ant-ique.

Believe it or Not

This is where you decide if this is true or not. In South America when someone had a cut they would get an ant to bite either side of the wound which would hold the cut together. Then they would break off the ants body, leaving the jaws in place. The ants body had become an instant bug stitch, when the cut was healed they would pull the jaws out. The ants also produce a special healing substance from a gland in their bodies that helped the South Americans to heal their wounds.

Text and links that we used:

"Australian Termites and other common timber pests" by Phillip Hadlington illustrations by Louise Beck. Very informative and easy to read. Pictures in black and white.
"A Field Guide to Insects In Australia" by Paul Zborowski and Ross Storey. There are great photographs in this book.
"Bugs Uncover The Creepy-Crawly World of Minibeasts" by Orbis Publishing. This was a series of magazines that have fantastic pictures, articles, and games for all ages. This series is on worldwide insects.
"An Exploration Of The Lives Of Insects Alien Empire" by Christopher O'Toole
"Backyard Insects" by Paul A Horne and Denis J Crawford
"101 Wacky facts about Bugs and Spiders" by Jean Waricha. No insult intended to the author, but I don't know how true some of these facts are, they are added for entertainment only.
Western Australian Museum fact sheets.
http://www.drdons.net/noframes.html and http://www.drdons.net/noframes.html A good site for students.