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A queen ant (formally known as a gyne) is an adult, reproducing female ant in an ant colony; she is usually the mother of all the other ants in that colony. Some female ants, such as the Cataglyphis , do not need to mate to produce offspring, reproducing through asexual parthenogenesis or cloning , and all of those offspring will be female. [ 1 ]
The queen ant's size can range from 4 to 10 millimetres (0.16 to 0.39 in). [2] This species can be distinguished from other subgenus by little amounts of erect hairs on the gena, limited erect hairs on the clypeal disc and finally by the color which is a concolorous dark brown-black. [1]
The colony was estimated to contain 306 million worker ants and one million queen ants living in 45,000 nests interconnected by underground passages over an area of 2.7 km 2 (670 acres). [14] In 2000, an enormous supercolony of Argentine ants was found in Southern Europe (report published in 2002). [15]
The queen can reach 6–9mm in length and is smaller as a new queen. After a queen mates, she removes her wings and digests her wing muscles as food over the winter. Male phenotype 3.5–4.5 mm long, slim, colour black. Only produced by queens when the nuptial flights are approaching.
These ants are large; workers and males are about the same size: 12 to 14 mm (0.47 to 0.55 in) for workers, and 11 to 12 mm (0.43 to 0.47 in) for males. The queen measures roughly 14 to 16 mm (0.55 to 0.63 in) long and is similar in appearance to workers, whereas males are identifiable by their perceptibly smaller mandibles.
Ants range in size from 0.75 to 52 millimetres (0.030–2.0 in), ... which describes the life and death of an ant-queen and the rise and fall of her colony, ...
Due to the queen's large reproductive potential, a colony of army ants can be descended from a single queen. [10] When the queen ant dies, there is no replacement and army ants cannot rear emergency queens. Most of the time, if the queen dies, the colony will likely die too. Queen loss can occur due to accidents during emigrations, predator ...
The pavement ant is dark brown to blackish, and 2.5–4 millimeters (0.10–0.16 in) long. A colony is composed of workers, alates, and a queen. Workers do have a small stinger, which can cause mild discomfort in humans but is essentially harmless. Alates, or new queen ants and drones, have wings, and are at least twice as large as the workers ...