How Long do Ants With Wings Live?

The Ant Queen

• When an ant queen lays eggs, whether or not those eggs are fertilized determines their sex. An unfertilized egg will produce a male ant, all of which have wings. A fertilized egg will produce a female, which may or may not have wings.

Male Ants

• All male ants have wings and exist only to fertilize females. They die right after mating.

Reproductive, Winged Female Ants

• Winged female ants are reproductive potential queens. Very few live to reproduce, as the vast majority will be killed by ants from other colonies or eaten by animals. If a reproductive female ant survives and is fertilized, she will lose her wings and go on to found her own colony.

Sterile, Wingless Female Ants

• Wingless females are worker ants who can rarely reproduce and whose purpose is to tend to the needs of the ant colony. The queen creates workers by coating her eggs in a chemical she secretes.

Life Span

• Male ants do not live very long--generally about a few weeks. Queen ants can live many years. A queen of the Carpenter species, very common in America, can live up to 25 years, for example. Her workers can live up to seven years. Lifespans of ants vary from species to species, but male ants never live very long.

Termites vs. Ants

• Termites can resemble ants. Both have two sets of wings, but termites' are generally the same size, while an ant's front wings are longer than its back wings. Ants have a more pronounced bow at the waist than termites. Termites' antennae are straight, and ants' are crooked.