Ant Life Cycles

Mating

• The queen and the winged males and females are the only ants that are capable of mating. The role of these ants is to mate only. They do not carry out the same tasks as worker ants. Shortly after the male and female ants have mated, in flight, the male dies. The female then travels to a location where she will lay her eggs and establish a new colony.

The Egg Stage

• An ant begins its life cycle as an egg, laid by the queen. If these tiny eggs have been fertilized, female ants will hatch from them. Male ants hatch from unfertilized eggs. The biggest threat to ant eggs is the risk of being eaten by other ants in the nest. A larva will hatch from each egg that survives. This is the next stage in an ant's metamorphosis.

The Larval Stage

• The larval stage is most importantly a feeding stage for ants. The queen ant nurtures these larvae, feeding them with food material from her own wing matter and fat stores through a method called trophallaxis, in which an adult animal feeds a younger one with regurgitated food. It is essential that the larvae are looked after as they are capable of very little at this stage, having no legs or eyes. The amount and quality of nutrition that larvae receive has an impact on the type of ant it will become as an adult. During this period of feeding and growth, skin is shed several times to allow the larva to continue growing until it is large enough to metamorphose into the next stage of its life cycle, the pupa.

The Pupal Stage

• This stage, which lasts a few weeks, sees the ant transform into a creature which resembles an adult ant although limbs and antennae have not yet unfurled. At this stage, the ant eats and moves very little. While some ant species create a cocoon around them, others transform from pupa to adult without one. Adult ants may move the pupa around the colony in an effort to regulate its temperature at this vital final stage before becoming an adult.

Adult Ants

• An ant has reached its full size when it becomes an adult. In a new colony, the first eggs that a queen lays will hatch into female worker ants. Subsequent generations will produce larger ants. The first are relatively small. As soon as they become adults, they emerge from the nest to gather food. The queen, meanwhile, will lay more eggs and the female worker ants will help to raise future generations. It takes years for the colony to mature to the point where it produces ants of both genders that are capable of mating themselves and flying to new locations in order to start a nest of their own.