Ant and Related Entomology Terms
(terms restricted to the study of social insects; such as, ants and words that apply generally to entomology)
Ants run much of the terrestrial world as soil turners, channelers of energy, dominatrics of the insect fauna and yet receive only passing mention in textbooks on ecology.
They employ the most complex forms of chemical communication of any animals and their social organization provides an illuminating contrast to that of human beings, but not one biologist in a hundred can describe the life cycle of any species.
Ants are classified as a single family, the Formicidae, within the order Hymenoptera, which also includes the bees, wasps, sawflies, ichneumons (order of parasitic wasps whose larvae feed on other live insect larvae), and similar forms.
The movement can serve as a sensory probe or as a tactile signal to another insect.
Stimulated by the attractants, the ants transport the seeds to new locations, discard them after feeding on the elaiosomes, and so aid in the dispersal of the seeds.
In other words, the nest site is changed at relatively frequent intervals, in some cases daily, and the workers forage in groups.
The tarsus is the foot of an insect; the one-segmented to five-segmented appendage attached to the tibia, or lower leg segment.
Here are two additional word units that deal directly with "ants": formic- and myrmeco-.
Index of additional Scientific and Technological Topics.
Bibliography of Entomology or Insect Terms (The Ants).