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Ants vary in colour; most ants are yellow to red or brown to black, but a few species are green and some tropical species have a metallic lustre. More than 13,800 species are currently known [ 37 ] (with upper estimates of the potential existence of about 22,000; see the article List of ant genera ), with the greatest diversity in the tropics.
Ants (family Formicidae in the order Hymenoptera) are the most species-rich of all social insects, with more than 12,000 described species and many others awaiting description. [1] Formicidae is divided into 21 subfamilies , of which 17 are extant and four subfamilies are extinct , described from fossils .
Ants first arose during the mid-Cretaceous, more than 100 million years ago, associated with the rise of flowering plants and an increase in forest ground litter. [5] The earliest known ants evolved from a lineage within the aculeate wasps, and a recent study suggests that they are a sister group of Apoidea. [6]
Bigger ants, like Japanese wood ants, are more agile than their counterparts and much larger — they’re equivalent in size to the Asian honeybee. Even still, one in 10 swings sends them soaring ...
Fungus-growing ants (tribe Attini) comprise all the known fungus-growing ant species participating in ant–fungus mutualism.They are known for cutting grasses and leaves, carrying them to their colonies' nests, and using them to grow fungus on which they later feed.
Being the largest ants on Earth, army ants, such as African Dorylus queens have the greatest reproductive potential among insects, with an egg-laying capacity of several million per month. Army ant queens never have to leave the protection of the colony, where they mate with foreign incoming males which disperse on nuptial flights .