The Ants Kingdom

justoneofmillion

Junior Member
:salam2:I Never thought of feminists finding comfort in a monarchy ,apart from the English of course.:)

Written by Catalina Toma

If only you took your time to find more information about it you’d surely start to appreciate it. But, there is a saying stating that first things should come first. I am going to start by mentioning the fact that they belong to the family called Formicidae, a family which in its turn belongs to a larger order referred to as the order of Hymenoptera. I envisage this information as some kind of genealogical tree but unlike it happens with us humans; in this case we are trying to discover the beginnings of ants. Some may frown skeptically as they probably never thought it was even worth thinking about such a thing. Even though we are aware of their existence in nature we find their presence insignificant comparing it the role we assign for ourselves.

I can say that I make the difference as I consider them unique and I most certainly find amazing the way they are organized. They are normally grouped in colonies which are ruled by one or more all ruling queens. But, as any kingdom, the ants’ kingdom also comprises male and female workers. In fact they are the ones that do the hardest jobs. The most pleasurable duty is perhaps the one which male workers have to accomplish, when it comes to mating with queen ants.

How would a parade of ants look like? Such a parade would most certainly be strikingly interesting as ants exhibit some amazing physical traits. Have you ever taken a close look at their legs? Unlike us, they have six legs, each of them with three joints. Perhaps this is an insignificant fact for many of you, yet the interesting part comes when finding out that being strong these legs help them move incredibly fast. Honestly, it didn’t look like that to me as every time I happened to look at them they were moving as if in slow motion. It must have been because they felt safe, or I was just unable to “read” them well. When it comes to mentioning the attribute of strength in ants you most probably had numerous occasions to see ants carrying various things which were certainly heavier than the weight of their body. Surprisingly or not, it has been discovered that these creatures are capable of lifting weights 20 times their own body weight and they manage to do this without breaking their back. Like crickets, ants too have compound eyes but they have many traits which make them unique as well. What is it that makes them unique? Their strong jaws which permit them to grab things, the fact that they have two stomachs, yes you read well, and why not the fact that they have more brain cells than we humans have.

ant_humor.jpg


Nature does amazing things with its creatures endowing them with just enough force as they need and giving them just the perfect structure. Such is the case of ants that have been endowed with two stomachs, one meant to be used when collecting food provisions for their fellow ants and the other meant to be used in their own interest. Can you now say that they are not incredible?

Striking may also be the fact that scientists have discovered the fact that the ant’s brain contains 250,000 cells, whereas the human brain has only 10,000 million such brain cells. So, the normal question here would be: Are the ants more intelligent than we are? I let you decide this when discovering the detailed organization of their life. They certainly do seem to be smart when they look after the eggs laid by the queen ant. How do they do this? Simply by taking these legs into their nests during the night when it is colder and getting them out during the day so that they can enjoy the warmth provided by the sun. And this is not the only such detail. By digging for more and more information one would probably be able to find numerous such examples. I also find impressing the fact that they are able to leave scented traces in order to help the other ants from their colony detect the food they had previously discovered. Isn’t this the uttermost sign of selflessness?

Since I mentioned the word parade when talking about the ants then I have to mention the trendy colors in which these creature step on the “catwalk”. They come in such colors as red, green, yellow, brown, blue and even purple. Quite a wide variety of colors if it were for me to think about their size. But as size doesn’t have anything to do with color, it may be envisaged as quite a normal thing. Nothing should surprise us when it comes to ants as almost everything seems to be possible in their case. Starting with the fact that they have been with us for more than 100 million years and continuing with the many unique details in their organization and in their looks.

Can anyone speak of ants in terms of a kingdom of ants? Since there is a queen involved or sometimes even more than one, then certainly this leads one to consider so. I envisaged this kingdom as some kind of a military organization with previously assigned tasks for everyone to accomplish. Every member of this kingdom knows its role and has to accomplish its tasks as best as possible. If comparing the female ant workers with women, certainly ants would be favored by the comparison. Why do I say this? Because even though their only role is that of working hard for the others and for their own survival, they do not complain. The queen ant on the other hand is the one that receives all the attention as she is the supreme leader of the kingdom. It is said that if the queen ant dies then the whole colony stands practically no chance of survival and this mainly because they seem to find the idea of replacing their dead queen unacceptable and as such their chance to reproduce is brought to zero. No matter how dedicated these ants look like when it comes to the members of their own colony, they become cruel when it comes to other colonies. What better way to prove this if not by considering the fact that they use different species of ants as slaves? I find it surprising the fact that the queen ants have some sort of modern “bodyguards” or soldier ants as scientists call them, which protect them and the whole colony as well.

When mentioning the way ants feed to the others you should make sure that they do not eat. I say this because in my “ant fervor”, in one of those “you know…” moments I told one of my friends that ants actually did not chew their food but extracted the juice and he told me to stop giving him so many details. As such ants can constitute for some an interesting subject or not, yet one should also choose the appropriate moment to share his “you know how smart I am” information. You may be smiling when reading this but you have to admit that you have experienced this”phase” too. If I had a smiley face now I would certainly use it.

Talking about food some of you may be interested what looks appetizing to ants. Well, certainly things that would not arouse your interest too, such as plants, seeds or another insect. Yet, I might need to correct myself as it seems that in some areas around the globe ants do look tasty themselves being considered a delicacy. Not that I condemn those persons but I honestly do not manage to imagine them in my plate, no matter how delicious they may be considered by some.

ant.jpg


Even though in my opinion they live for quite short periods of life, somewhere between 69 to 78 days, their life seems to be quite full. And here I cannot but think about a saying which says that it is ”better to be happy for a moment…than live a long time and be bored all the while”. I am not sure that this is how ants feel too, or if they feel anything at all, but I cannot help but hope that it can be applied to their world too.

There are so many details from the animal world that sometimes remain unknown to us! Such is the case of ants too as being found in a wide variety of shapes and colors and species as well, they cannot stop surprising us. Is this the “ant microbe” enslaving me again? Would I manage to get rid of this microbe? For sure, as it may happen the next time I step on an ant, not even realizing that that just made me an ant murderer. Those being sadist would probably say now that there are enough ants in this world for me not to worry about them anymore. They may be true as it has been discovered that each human being could be the owner of at least 1.5 million ants.

Did you know that ants are most often characterized as being social insects? You were most surely able to discover this by yourself as they gather in large groups in your kitchen or your bathroom at times. Do you find this bothering? Perhaps you shouldn’t anymore mainly because now you know more about them than you probably did before. Is this enough to make you change your feelings towards them? It all depends on the kind of person you are and on how you choose to relate to these creatures from the animal world, or better said the insect world in this case. I know that in certain situations these insects called ants can be really annoying, especially in those cases when you decide to have a picnic and all you get is a pile of ants getting all over you and as if this was not enough some may be stinging you as if determined to show you that they are somehow related to wasps. In fact these stinging ants do nothing but protect their territory which they consider it invaded by you. Who spoils the fun in fact here, is it us the humans or them, the insects? As we consider ourselves the owners of the natural world most of you will probably say that they are the ones that spoil our fun.
But, as it is not a match and as I am not an umpire it is not my duty to decide which one is right and which is wrong. All I can do is quote King Solomon who once said “Go to the ant, consider its ways and be wise.


Let's peep into the ant kingdom!

There is an entrance to an ants' nest in a corner of a yard. As always, ants are coming from and going into the nest.
By the way, do you know that ants establish kingdoms? In an ant kingdom, many ants are busily working under a queen ant. There are many chambers in one of these kingdoms in which eggs and larvae are being raised.
OK now, let's peep into the ant kingdom.  

A colony of Messor aciculatus ants, which construct the deepest nests found anywhere in the world. Their nests are as deep as about 4 meters and have many small chambers constructed alongside galleries. Most chambers are filled with seeds on which the Messor aciculatus ants are feeding. Far under the earth's surface, there is a chamber for the queen ant.
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This is what an ant kingdom is like!    

Ants are living in a large nest with ants of the same species.
In an ants' nest, there are various types of chambers, including a chamber for the queen ant (mother ant), chambers for worker ants that go out to work, chambers in which larvae are cared for, chambers for food storage, and others for wastes and other purposes.
During most of the year, only the mother ant (queen ant), workers, larvae and eggs are found in the nests, but winged male and female ants can also be seen at certain times of the year.



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Source.http://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/BE/Kingdom/0405/07e.gif

And here is a wonderful video of a recent excavation,Subhanallah.


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Quraan (27.18). At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: "O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it."

And for those atacking Islam And saying that ants can not talk as the QUraan states .Saying that ants communicat ants communicate by chemicals detected by scent and never sound .Here is one of the latest scientific discoveries on the subject.

Hills are alive with the sound of ants — talking to each other
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

Advances in audio technology have enabled scientists to discover that ants routinely talk to each other in their nests.

Most ants have a natural washboard and plectrum built into their abdomens that they can rub together to communicate using sound.

Using miniaturised microphones and speakers that can be inserted unobtrusively into nests, researchers established that the queens can issue instructions to their workers.

The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves.


Rebel's large blue butterfly is one of about 10,000 creatures that have a parasitic relationship with ants and has now been found to have learnt to imitate the sounds as well as using chemical signals.

The butterfly's caterpillars are carried by ants into the nests where they beg for food and are fed by the workers. When a colony is disturbed the ants will rescue the caterpillars before their own broods.

Research several decades ago had shown that ants were able to make alarm calls using sounds, but only now has it been shown that their vocabulary may be much bigger and that they can “talk” to each other.

Professor Jeremy Thomas, of the University of Oxford, said improvements in technology had made the discoveries possible because it meant the ants could be recorded and subjected to playbacks without becoming alarmed.

By placing miniature speakers into the nest and playing back sounds made by a queen, the researchers were able to persuade ants to stand to attention.

“When we played the queen sounds they did 'en garde' behaviour. They would stand motionless with their antennae held out and their jaws apart for hours - the moment anyone goes near they will attack,” he said.

He described how the ants would press their antennae to the speaker just as they would seek to greet another ant in the nest.

Professor Thomas said it remained unclear how much the ants relied on sound for language but he suspected that further analysis would reveal a wider vocabulary than had been seen yet.

“The most important discovery is that within the ant colony different sounds can provoke different reactions,” he said. “I would be very surprised if we didn't get different types of sound.

“It's within the power of the ant to play different tunes by changing the rhythm with which they rub.”

He added that the detection of the role of sounds provided the “final piece of the jigsaw” to explain how Rebel's large blue caterpillars survive in ants' nests and should help to guide conservationists in trying to save the endangered European mountain species.

Francesca Barbero, of the University of Turin, said: “Our new work shows that the role of sound in information exchange within ant colonies has been greatly underestimated.”

Karsten Schönrogge, of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Oxfordshire, said the mimicry by the caterpillars was so convincing that the ants afforded them higher status than their own young. They will even slaughter their own young to feed the interlopers when food is scarce.

The findings were reported in the journal Science.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5672006.ece

Which of the favors of your lord would you deny Surat Ar Rahman Chapter 55 The Glorious Quraan.
 

Mairo

Maryama
:salam2:

All I can do is quote King Solomon who once said “Go to the ant, consider its ways and be wise."

Quraan (27.18). At length, when they came to a (lowly) valley of ants, one of the ants said: "O ye ants, get into your habitations, lest Solomon and his hosts crush you (under foot) without knowing it."

And for those atacking Islam And saying that ants can not talk as the QUraan states. Saying that ants communicate by chemicals detected by scent and never sound. Here is one of the latest scientific discoveries on the subject.

Quote:
Hills are alive with the sound of ants — talking to each other
Lewis Smith, Environment Reporter

Advances in audio technology have enabled scientists to discover that ants routinely talk to each other in their nests.

Most ants have a natural washboard and plectrum built into their abdomens that they can rub together to communicate using sound.

Using miniaturised microphones and speakers that can be inserted unobtrusively into nests, researchers established that the queens can issue instructions to their workers.

The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves.


Rebel's large blue butterfly is one of about 10,000 creatures that have a parasitic relationship with ants and has now been found to have learnt to imitate the sounds as well as using chemical signals.

The butterfly's caterpillars are carried by ants into the nests where they beg for food and are fed by the workers. When a colony is disturbed the ants will rescue the caterpillars before their own broods.

Research several decades ago had shown that ants were able to make alarm calls using sounds, but only now has it been shown that their vocabulary may be much bigger and that they can “talk” to each other.

Professor Jeremy Thomas, of the University of Oxford, said improvements in technology had made the discoveries possible because it meant the ants could be recorded and subjected to playbacks without becoming alarmed.

By placing miniature speakers into the nest and playing back sounds made by a queen, the researchers were able to persuade ants to stand to attention.

“When we played the queen sounds they did 'en garde' behaviour. They would stand motionless with their antennae held out and their jaws apart for hours - the moment anyone goes near they will attack,” he said.

He described how the ants would press their antennae to the speaker just as they would seek to greet another ant in the nest.

Professor Thomas said it remained unclear how much the ants relied on sound for language but he suspected that further analysis would reveal a wider vocabulary than had been seen yet.

“The most important discovery is that within the ant colony different sounds can provoke different reactions,” he said. “I would be very surprised if we didn't get different types of sound.

“It's within the power of the ant to play different tunes by changing the rhythm with which they rub.”

He added that the detection of the role of sounds provided the “final piece of the jigsaw” to explain how Rebel's large blue caterpillars survive in ants' nests and should help to guide conservationists in trying to save the endangered European mountain species.

Francesca Barbero, of the University of Turin, said: “Our new work shows that the role of sound in information exchange within ant colonies has been greatly underestimated.”

Karsten Schönrogge, of the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Oxfordshire, said the mimicry by the caterpillars was so convincing that the ants afforded them higher status than their own young. They will even slaughter their own young to feed the interlopers when food is scarce.

The findings were reported in the journal Science.

:salam2: I found the above fascinating! I didn't realize this part of the Quran is referring to ants communicating, a version of the Quran I reference says the following instead:
[27.18] Until when they came to the valley of the Naml, a Namlite said: O Naml! enter your houses, (that) Sulaiman and his hosts may not crush you while they do not know.

I didn't know Naml = ant! Truly, it is very important that we respect all forms of life, every creature has a purpose according to Allah's decree.

:jazaak: for sharing

:wasalam:
 

justoneofmillion

Junior Member
:salam2: I found the above fascinating! I didn't realize this part of the Quran is referring to ants communicating, a version of the Quran I reference says the following instead:
[27.18] Until when they came to the valley of the Naml, a Namlite said: O Naml! enter your houses, (that) Sulaiman and his hosts may not crush you while they do not know.

I didn't know Naml = ant! Truly, it is very important that we respect all forms of life, every creature has a purpose according to Allah's decree.

:jazaak: for sharing

:wasalam:
:salam2:dear sister you are right.Naml actually means Ants it is the plural form.whereas namla means is ant for the singular it is feminine.I did not even know that they actually use speech or sound as a way of communication ,I never really dwelled on the matter.

I have been reading the Quraan for years an always thought that passage had more of a Metaphorical connotation.Until i came to realize that some of those who try to discredit the Quraan used this particular verse.However still i wasn t convinced by their attempts.Because for me it was no big deal ants talking or not .But it is crazy how discoveries such as these take another significance subhanallah when he says;

Allah disdains not to use the similitude of things, lowest (like female mosquitoes) as well as highest. Those who believe know that it is truth from their Lord; but those who reject Faith say: "What means Allah by this similitude?" By it He causes many to stray,
and many He leads into the right path; but He causes not to stray, except those who forsake (the path).Quraan 2 :26 AL- Baqara


'They aim to extinguish God's light with their utterances: but God has willed to spread His light in all its fullness, however hateful this may be to all who deny the truth'
Quraan 61:8

From the revert stories since 911,to the financial crisis ,the cartoons,the films, the books,until something as small as those cute ants,Allah swt makes the truth shine through and become clear sometimes through their own marketing strategies:).

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

May Allah swt shower his mercy on you.
 

justoneofmillion

Junior Member
:salam2:dear sister you are right.Naml actually means Ants it is the plural form.whereas namla means is ant for the singular it is feminine.I did not even know that they actually use speech or sound as a way of communication ,I never really dwelled on the matter.

I have been reading the Quraan for years an always thought that passage had more of a Metaphorical connotation.Until i came to realize that some of those who try to discredit the Quraan used this particular verse.However still i wasn t convinced by their attempts.Because for me it was no big deal ants talking or not .But it is crazy how discoveries such as these take another significance subhanallah when he says;

Allah disdains not to use the similitude of things, lowest (like female mosquitoes) as well as highest. Those who believe know that it is truth from their Lord; but those who reject Faith say: "What means Allah by this similitude?" By it He causes many to stray,
and many He leads into the right path; but He causes not to stray, except those who forsake (the path).Quraan 2 :26 AL- Baqara


'They aim to extinguish God's light with their utterances: but God has willed to spread His light in all its fullness, however hateful this may be to all who deny the truth'
Quraan 61:8

From the revert stories since 911,to the financial crisis ,the cartoons,the films, the books,until something as small as those cute ants,Allah swt makes the truth shine through and become clear sometimes through their own marketing strategies:).

Thanks for taking the time to read my post.

May Allah swt shower his mercy on you.

The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves.
Haha,this is soooo funny everybody trying to enslave everybody even there,to me these insects look more like some sort of Neocons Mossad undercover agents,Laurence of Arabia style.Who knows maybe those neocons are merely small insects.I don t know why it came to me like this..Lol
 

Mairo

Maryama
The astonished researchers, who managed to make the first recordings of queen ants “speaking”, also discovered that other insects can mimic the ants to make them slaves.

Haha,this is soooo funny everybody trying to enslave everybody even there,to me these insects look more like some sort of Neocons Mossad undercover agents,Laurence of Arabia style.Who knows maybe those neocons are merely small insects.I don t know why it came to me like this..Lol

:salam2: akhi

Yes - I had the same reaction to this part! LOL All the other insects like butterflys with parasitic relationships, able to speak the ant language, and thereby control them to act as they wish. Also the researchers playing back certain commands by speakers to have them stand 'en garde'. Amazing

It is very clear each animal group has its own language to communicate, and from biologists in depth studies we are able to see how they relate in communities, which very often have parallels to human sociology as well.

Also, in the same surah of the ants it talks about Suliman/Solomon was granted the ability to understand the language of the birds

[27.16] And Sulaiman was Dawood's heir, and he said: O men! we have been taught the language of birds, and we have been given all things; most surely this is manifest grace.

Awesome!
 

abu'muhammad

Junior Member
Assalaamu alaykum,

The nest in the vid shows as there are some underground coconuts, lol.. isn’t it ?

On reading through the burden capacity I remembered an interesting event in an article way back.It depicted that a person was moving in the amazon forests and he saw the ants cutting some particular leaf for food and coming back to their nest. One of the ant tumbled on the way, was on the edge of branch ready to fall. But It didn’t. he felt surprised to see the whole leaf was hanging and the ant holding it, trying to tug it and later tugged it back successfully. later he weight the leaf and the ant.The leaf came out to be approximately 25 times weighter than that of ant.He made the same consideration for humans and that came as, it was just as holding a falling elephant or more than that with the jaws.That practically shows the amazing strength of jaws of this creatures. subhanAllaah.
 

islamlover49

Junior Member
Ants ‘good at solving complex maths’

Source link: http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/article949917.ece

An ant colony is probably the last place one would expect to find a maths whiz, but a study has shown that they could solve complex, dynamic problems, and may even help computer scientists develop better software.

An international team has found the ants are capable of solving difficult mathematical problems and also able to do what few computer algorithms can -- adapt optimal solution to fit a problem, the ‘Journal of Experimental Biology’ reported.

Using a novel technique, scientists tested whether Argentine ants could solve a dynamic optimisation problem by converting classic Towers of Hanoi maths puzzle into a maze.

“Although inspired by nature, the computer algorithms often do not represent the real world because they are static and designed to solve a single, unchanging problem,” said lead author Chris Reid of Sydney University.

He added: “But nature is full of unpredictability and one solution does not fit all. So we turned to ants to see how well their problem solving skills respond to change. Are they fixed to a single solution or can they adapt?”

The scientists tested the ants using the three-rod, three-disk version of the Towers of Hanoi problem -- a toy puzzle that requires players to move disks between rods while obeying certain rules and using the fewest possible moves.

But since ants cannot move disks, they converted the puzzle into a maze where the shortest path corresponds to the solution with fewest moves in the toy puzzle.

The ants at the entry point of the maze could chose between 32,768 possible paths to get to the food source on the other side, with only two of the paths being the shortest path and thus the optimal solution.

The ants were given one hour to solve the maze by creating a high traffic path between their nest and the food source, after which time the researchers blocked off paths and opened up new areas of the maze to test the ants’ dynamic problem solving ability.

After an hour, the ants solved the Towers of Hanoi by finding the shortest path around the edge of the maze. But when that path was blocked off, the ants responded first by curving their original path around the obstacle and establishing a longer, suboptimal, route.

But after a further hour, the ants had successfully resolved the maze by abandoning their suboptimal route and establishing a path that traversed through the centre of the maze on the new optimal route.

But not all the colonies’ problem solving skills were equal -- ants that were allowed to explore the maze without food for an hour prior to the test made fewer mistakes and were faster at resolving the maze compared to the ants that were naive.

Reid said: “Even simple mass-recruiting ants have much more complex and labile problem solving skills than we ever thought. Contrary to previous belief, the pheromone system of ants does not mean they get stuck in a particular path and can’t adapt.

“Having at least two separate pheromones gives them much more flexibility and helps them to find good solutions in a changing environment. Discovering how ants are able to solve dynamic problems can provide new inspiration for optimisation algorithms, which in turn can lead to better problem-solving software and hence more efficiency for human industries.”
 
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