The way ants find food may always be curious. How such a small animal can consume food.
In general, ants are animals that have a small body size. You can easily find these animals at home.
Ants also like to live in groups. For this reason, the way they find food also actually depends on each other.
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How Do Ants Find Food?
If ants are compared to other types of insects, bee and ant colonies are indeed more organized, especially in the process of looking for food.
Ants live in a caste system that makes them have different tasks to keep their colony intact. A worker is a caste of ants whose job is to find and feed, take care of the queen, and clean the nest.
When the ant colony is looking for food, they will walk quite a distance out of the nest.
Worker ants do not actually have a pattern when they are walking in search of food sources. Instead, they will find food by walking randomly without a pattern.
They will then leave a trail of pheromones or fluids that will help find their way back to the nest.
After finding a food source, the worker ants will release more pheromones, which serve as signals. Then, other ants will emerge from the nest and begin to follow the pheromone trail using their antennae to the food source.
After that, they will bring the food back to the nest.
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How Do Ants Eat?
After that, the next way the ants find food, of course they will consume the food they get. Ants eat their food in liquid or semi-solid form.
After transporting the food, the ants then distribute it throughout the colony via a social stomach that functions as an internal lunchbox in their body.
Once the social belly is full, all will walk back to the nest and feed the larvae and other ants little by little with their mouths.
The process of eating ants that share fluids or food with other individuals is known as trophallaxis or trophalaxis.
Adult ants will not eat solid food. When they find a solid part of the food source, it will take it into the nest for further processing.
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Ant Food
In general, each type of ant is an omnivorous animal which includes opportunistic eaters. That is, ants eat plants and meat around them.
Each type of ant has a different attraction to food. For example, black house ants are more attracted to sweet foods and meat.
While other types such as carpenter ants are more attracted to dead insects and honey in the wild.
Most ants are attracted to at least the same 3 types of food, namely:
- Sweet food
- Mold
- Foods that contain protein
Despite having different food interests, the way ants forage for food and then consume it remains the same across all species. (R10/HR-Online)
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