1. Slavery among ants
Ants also existed in slavery, and soldier ants in some ants were good at attacking the nests of other species, and after entering the nests, they plundered the eggs that the ants did not hatch.
These soldier ants take their eggs back to their nests and give them to slave ants to hatch, and the hatched ants do not know that they are slaves from birth, but diligently engage in the work of worker ants, caring for the eggs (including, of course, the eggs that have been plundered back), and the queen.
Slave worker ants are caring for their eggs
How much this scene is like the slave society of the victorious countries who bring a large number of captives back to their own countries, slaves who are kept in cages for sale and trade, of course, the difference is that the slaves know that they are slaves, while the slave workers do not know their own lives for life.
2. Planting among ants
Like human agriculture, there is also farming in ant societies, and there are several ant species in the Americas that are good at growing nurseries, the most famous of which is the parasol ant in South America.
Parasol ants are highly reproductive, able to dig complex nests underground, digging up to 40 tons of soil, and they have set up nurseries underground.
Worker ants collect leaves and chew them up, laying them in nurseries, and these leaves become a breeding ground for fungi, and ants not only know how to grow fungi and let them take root, but also take care of these fungi and weed them.
Worker ants are tending to the nursery
The fungus feeds on the leaves, digests and processes the nutrients that the ants cannot digest, and the ants then enjoy these fungi to obtain nutrients, while the reproductive efficiency and range of the fungi are improved and expanded, and they have a win-win situation.
The relationship between ants and fungi is like the relationship between humans and wheat.
3. Animal husbandry among ants
Some ants are good at planting, others are good at grazing, and one kind of ant is good at using aphids.
Aphids are very good at sucking juice from the veins of the leaf, but they digest this juice much slower than they suck it, so a large amount of undigested juice is secreted along the back end of the aphid, and it is also very fast. The juice secreted by aphids is a natural nutrient, and whenever an aphid secretes sap, there are many kinds of ants waiting for this big meal below.
Sometimes these ants will massage the buttocks of the aphids like humans milk cows to get more juice, of course the aphids enjoy this massage very much, and gradually they use the juice to induce the ants to massage them.
In addition to massaging and milking their "cows", ants naturally protect them and protect them from predators, just as we humans protect sheep from wolves, and gradually aphids also lose their defense ability and are naturally protected by ants, and gradually become ants' livestock.
Some ants even bring aphid eggs back to their nests to properly care for the larvae that hatch and raise aphids. When aphids grow up, the ants will send them to the ground to graze in the colony's sphere of influence. It's like humans grazing cattle and sheep on the prairie.
Ants grazing aphids