Ant and Related Entomology Terms

A sugar-rich fluid derived from the phloem sap, of which there are two main types of tissue in vascular plants which conducts synthesized nutrients of plants and passed as excrement through the guts of sap-feeding aphids and other insects; Honeydew is the principal food of many kinds of ants.

A member of the specialized physiological caste of the genus Myrmecocystus: Honeypot ants store large quantities of sugary liquid in their hugely expanded crops.

The long bone of the upper arm or forelimb: The humerus is found in various animals, like in rabbits, sheep, goats, and horses, for example.

1. An insect of the order Hymenoptera (an extensive order of highly specialized insects); comprising the sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants: The name hymenopteran refers to the membranous wings of the insects, in which the hind wings are connected to the fore wings by a series of hooks called "hamuli".
2. Etymology: from the Ancient Greek humen, "membrane" and pteron, "wing".

Referring to an individual or traits of individuals belonging to the insect order Hymenoptera: Hymenopterous insects consist of wasps, bees, ants, and sawflies, have membranous wings, and an organ, or ovipositor, that is specialized for stinging, sawing, or piercing

Pertaining to an organism that lives primarily underground (subterranean) or at least beneath cover: The activity of hypogaeic leaf litter, stones, and dead bark (cryptobiotic) take place below the surface of the soil.

A relatively undifferentiated tissue mass occurring in the body of a larva: A imaginal disc is inside a larvae and becomes part of the outside during the pupal phase of total metamorphosis.

An adult insect: In termites, imagos is usually applied only to adult primary reproductives (males and fertile females).

The sum of an individual's own fitness, plus all the individual's influence on the fitness of relatives other than direct descendants: Inclusive fitness encompasses the total effect of individual selection and kin selection.

Conspicuously swollen; especially, near the tip, as an antenna.

The hypothetical system in which individuals judge others to be kin or non-kin according to whether they possess certain alleles (members of a pair or series of genes that occupy a specific position on a specific chromosome) which encode a particular recognition label.

The alleles may be recognition alleles in the strict sense, controlling both the production of the pheromone and its perception, or they may prescribe a less direct phenotype matching system.

A cavity on the floor of the buccal chamber in which indigestible material accumulates and is compacted for later disposal.

Buccal refers to part of the cheek or the mouth.

Referring to the crop, the distensible middle portion of the fore gut in which in many species liquid food is stored.

The relation in which a socially parasitic species spends the entire life cycle in the nests of its host species.

Workers are either lacking or, if present, scarce and degenerate in behavior. This condition is sometimes referred to loosely as permanent parasitism.

In the strict sense, a colony of eusocial insects; such as, ants, termites, eusocial wasps, or bees.

In the broad sense, any group of presocial or eusocial insects.