Вставьте пропущенные фразы в текст (1 лишняя) A) They are fed enormous quantities of honey until their bodies become so big that they can’t move.
B) They destroy every living thing in their path.
C) Ants follow the trail that other ants have left to locate a food source.
D) These are all female and infertile.
E) These ants don’t have a permanent home.
F) Once this critical period is over and the first workers are at work, the colony rapidly develops.
G) This is generally the best way to get rid of ants from your garden.
H) All ant species will fight to protect their colony and some will attack other species.

An Ant’s Eye View

They are found all over the world. They can lift up to 50 times their own body weight. They seem to behave in complicated ways, yet each individual is typically no more than a couple of centimeters long. There are more than 4,500 species of ants, with most of them found in the rainforests. Unfortunately, due to deforestation in these areas, many species will never be recorded.

Ants live in a colony, which is built around the queen. She is the largest ant and her sole occupation is producing eggs, while all her physical needs are taken care of by the worker ants around her. 1 They perform such functions as foraging for food and defending the colony from attack, as well as tending to the queen and the colony’s eggs.

A colony is founded when a new queen sets off in search of a possible location. Once she has chosen her spot, she begins to lay eggs, some of which are for eating during the difficult first few months. 2 Each species has its own characteristic way of doing things. The leafcutter ant, for example, cuts sections from leaves which it carries back to the nest. These are used as a kind of fertilizer for fungus gardens the ants create underground. There, the leaves provide a rich source of nutrients for the fungus, which the ants eventually consume.

Besides, there’s the honeypot ant. These ants select certain workers to act as living containers for food. 3 They act as a store for the food and feed other ants by producing the honey when they receive the right chemical signals. These signals are an important part of all ants’ lives and are used for, among other things, establishing identity and indicating the source of food. This also helps to explain how such simple beings can display such a complex behavior. 4 If an obstacle blocks the ants’ path, they swarm in all directions, attempting to go around. The ants who discover the shorter way will get there faster and leave a stronger scent trail. Gradually, as more and more ants follow this trail, it becomes even stronger, until all the ants are following the quicker route.

This kind of communication is very important in nomadic species, such as the army ant. 5 Instead, they form a nest using their own bodies, with millions of them hanging from a tree. When they decide to move on, the whole colony marches through the forest, carrying the queen and the eggs. The sight of a column of these ants on the move is one of the most frightening sights in the rainforest. 6 Insects, young birds, lizards and other small animals that fail to escape in time can look forward to a rather unpleasant end.

It’s not just the army ant, though, that can be a threat. 7 They do this using acid produced in their bodies as a weapon. After a successful attack, some species of ant will take eggs from the losing colony and return them to their own, raising the ants to work as slaves.

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