Ant and Related Entomology Terms

The combined range of environmental variables: Such niches can be the temperature, humidity, and food items, within which a species can exist and reproduce.

A rounded, knob-like structure: A node can be the petiolar node (the upper rounded portion of the petiole or the slender stem that supports the blade of a leaf).

The period (as opposed to the "statary phase") in the activity cycle of an army ant colony during which the colony forages more actively for food and moves frequently from one bivouac site to another: Throughout the nomadic phase, the queen does not lay eggs, and the bulk of the brood is in the larval stage.

The relatively frequent movement by an entire colony : Ants often go through stages of nomadism from one nest site to another.

The mating flight of the winged queens and males: Nuptial flights are known to take place among sexually mature ants when they leave their parent nests and swarm around and mate.

In general entomology, the young stage of any insect species with "hemimetabolous" development: In termites, the term nymph is used in a slightly more restricted sense to designate immature individuals who possess external wing buds and enlarged gonads and who are capable of developing into functional reproductives by further molting.

The rear corners of the head.

One of the three simple eyes of adult insects, located on or near the center line of the dorsal surface of the head.

The ocelli (eyes having a single lens) should be distinguished from the laterally placed compound eyes.

A chemical trace laid down by one insect and followed by another.

The odorous material is referred to either as the "trail pheromone" or the "trail substance".

The occurrence in a single colony of two or a few other functional queens.

Oligogyny is characterized by worker tolerance toward more than one queen, and antagonism among queens, so that multiple queens cannot coexist in the same immediate vicinity and must spread out.

The presence of a few queens within a single colony of ants.

One of the basic visual units, or facets, of the insect compound eye.

The ommatidia are bounded externally by the facets that together make up the glassy, rounded outer surface of the eye.

Egg cannibalism; the eating by a colony member of her own eggs or those laid by a nest mate.

The tendency to return repeatedly to the same site during foraging or guard duty.

One of the egg tubes which, together, form the ovary in female insects.