ANTS
 

Hymenoptera: Formicidae

Construction in progress

Ants form a single family amongst the large order of Hymenoptera and are divided into four extant sub-families. Most British species belong to the Formicinae (have a single waist segment) or the Myrmicinae (have two waist segments). They are social animals living in 'nests' and are polymorphic: queens having different sizes and body forms from males and workers (which may come in several forms). Some ants are parasitic and some are specialist feeders but most British species can be described as food generalists, eating both plant and animal material.  This page is mainly concerned with their relationships to other groups of insects although links on other aspects of their behaviour and life history are given in links.

	Ants are predatory, killing animals, often many times their own size, but they are also important scavengers, collecting dead or dying insects: for instance a shieldbug (left) or the cricket (right).
	They most commonly eat smaller insects such as aphids. However, their relationship with aphids is not a simple predator-prey one. Some ants will tend some aphid species in much the same way that farmers tend cows. The ants take the honeydew excreted by aphids - this is a valuable carbohydrate source. (Right - click to enlarge © Les Wilson). If, however, they need a protein source they will eat the aphids.
	As part of this tending process, ants will defend their herds of aphids from other predators: particularly ladybirds.  Ladybirds usually, but not always, retreat from ant attack.  It is not likely that many ladybirds are killed this way but it certainly has an affect on ladybird distribution locally: trees with aphids tended by ants usually have few ladybirds compared with untended trees.
	Some ladybirds, however, are able to live with ants. The scarce seven-spot ladybird (Coccinella magnifica) is able to live in and around the nests of wood ants (left: click pic for another view  photograph © Matt Smith) .  The atypical ladybird, Platynaspis luteorubra, right, is found in the nests of smaller garden and field ants (Lasius spp)

LINKS
Common British species
Ants - general
 

RETURN TO LADYBIRDS
RETURN TO BUGS
RETURN TO INDEX
RETURN TO HOME

CREATED 27/9/2005