Whereas workers live six months to a year and then die of old age or some accident during foraging," says Cassill. Earth News. E-mail this to a friend Printable version. Matt Walker Editor, Earth News. A fire ant worker: awake and alert. The large number and short naps by workers means that jobs in the nest never go unattended. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Ants' home search habit uncovered 22 Apr 09 Bristol.
Exploring the virtual ant colony 18 Aug 08 Technology. Deby Cassill. Solenopsis invicta: Ant Web. Ant photographs: Myrmecos. Printable version. The secrets of ant sleep revealed. Domestic cats can clock hours every single day. But how do human sleep patterns compare to some of the littlest fellas of the earth, ants? Have you ever noticed how ants seem to always be moving? Do ants sleep? How and why do ants sleep the way they do? Well… yes! We understand sleep to be a period of elongated rest that we enjoy in order to refresh ourselves for the following day.
Overall, however, their behavior resembles napping more than sleeping. And they nap a lot. In a fascinating study of the fire ant Solenopsis invicta by Deby Cassill and her co-researchers, studies showed that on average, a worker ant will get 4 hours of rest in a single hour period at irregular intervals, taking up to micro-naps. As it turns out, this is a survival mechanism that helps keep an ant colony progressing. When work is slow, workers sleep more.
Others may forage in the daytime and come back to the nest to feed and water. And, some may run away, so they are not visible when you look for them in the dark.
The best guess is that the animals sleep to conserve energy. When they wake up in the morning, the worker ants probably eat what they missed the day before. Most ants do sleep , but not all do. In nature, an ant may be awake for only a couple of hours , but in captivity, most will sleep for three or four days a week. The most active ants, those that run around the yard constantly, may sleep only a couple of hours a night.
For most, this is enough to conserve energy. If the weather is very cold, or if you live in a dry or windy area, you may want to increase the time that you ant sleep at night. This depends on the type of ant and colony. Some ants like to have a place where they can go when the weather is bad or the ants need to seek out food.
If they live in a dry wooded area, then they may sleep outside during the day. On the other hand, some ants like to have a sheltered place to retreat to when the weather turns very cold.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Pin 4. Table of Contents. Related posts:. Do ants have an eye Or Ants Are Blind?
0コメント