Ants and Humans

Ants can be both harmful and beneficial to humans. Pest species include ants that harbor and protect homoterans that in turn damage plants. Atta leaf cutter that defoliate entire trees and pose a threat to tropical agriculture, harvesters that can strip rangeland of vegetation and thus promote erosion, carpenter ants that can damage wooden structure, and the red fire ant, which inflicts a painful sting. On the other hand, Chinese citrus growers have for centuries used pedacious ant Oecophylla smaragdina in mandarin orange trees to destroy insect pests, and other ant species have been similarly used to protect crops elsewhere.

Classification and Origin

Ants from a single family, the Formicidae, in order Hymenoptera. They differ from other Hymenoptera in processing a pair of metapleural glands. Although the function of these thoracic glands remains unclear, it has been suggested that they produce an odor that distinguishes one colony from another.

Ants probably evolved from wasps resembling the present day family Tiphiidae. In the fossil record, ants known almost exclusively from Tertiary fossils, the oldest of which is of the Eocene Epoch (approximately 53 to 37 million years ago). These fossil ant are similar to contemporary ants.

Specialized Colonies of Ant

Army Ants: Many ant species have specialized ways of obtaining food. Among the more dramatic is army ant behavior, which includes group prediction and nomadism. The former involves both group raiding and group retrieval of prey. Because the workers forage an masse for food, they are able to overcome and capture other social insects and large arthropods. The colonies frequently migrate to new nesting sites where food is abundant.

Fungus-Growing Ants: Ants of the New World tribe Attini are highly specialized Herbivores that cultivate subterranean fungal gardens on fecal or plant-derived substrates. This fungus serves as the genus leaves, which they masticate and on which they grow their fungus break down leaf proteins. Because the ants cannot digest the cellulose in these macerated leaves, and the fungus can, the ants gain access to the cellulose by eating the fungus.

Harvester Ants: Many ants feed on seeds. Some called harvesters, live in arid environments and depends almost totally on seeds. Most harvesters construct elaborate subterranean nests that reach depths of 2 m (6 ft) or more. The nests contain some chambers devoted entirely to the storage of seeds and are sometimes topped by a mound of gravel and sand. Workers clear all vegetation from a circular space around the nest some 1 to 10 m (3 to 33 ft) wide. Harvesters generally husk the collected seeds before storing them.

Gatherers and Herders: Some ants gather plant liquids directly from wounds and nectarines. Still others collect honeydew, a substance excrete by insect such as Aphids and Treehoppers. These insects, of the order Homoptera, feed on plant juice. Although the nutrient-rich juices first pass through the homopteran's digestive tract, the honeydew excreted through the anus still contains many nutrients. Some ants simply lick fallen honeydew, whereas other actively solicit it and directly imbibe the droplets as they from at the anal opening. The homopterans are protected from predators by the ants, which may even construct shelters over their "cows."

Parasitic and Slave-Making Ants: Some ants have entered into parasitic relations with other ants. Two or more species may from compound nests, in which the broods are maintained separately and the parasitic species obtains food from the host species. Although compound nests may be non-parasitic, another category, called mixed colonies, almost always result from social parasitism. In these the broods of the involved species are mixed and cared for as one. Some parasitic ants are permanent resident of the host colony and are so specialized that they have lost the worker caste. Slave making also results in mixed colonies. Slave-making species raid other colonies and steal worker pupae, which they enslave to carry out the work of their colonies.

Ants (1)

Ants are no doubt the most successful of all the social insects of the Hymenoptera, an order that also includes the social wasps and bees. Ants are colony makers and have inhabited the warmer environments of the earth for at least 100 million years. Their number are prodigious; it has been estimated that any one time there are at least one quadrillion (1x10¹⁵) living ants on the Earth, a number so large that it is almost meaningless. This individuals are members of some 5000 or perhaps as many as 10,000 species. Ants are remarkably adaptive and are found almost everywhere. In there feeding habits they range from species that specialize in feeding exclusively on Arthropod eggs to those which feed indiscriminately on any living or dead animal.

 

Form and Function

Ant colonies may contain from a few to upward of 20 million individuals. They consist of two or more castes and sub castes of females, and male are winged and appear only periodically in the life of the colony. The males are produced, as in all other Hymenoptera, from unfertillized eggs and serve only hand, develop from fertilized eggs and are the functional mainstay of the colony. Some are queens, usually winged; once inseminated, they produced large number of eggs from which the Larvae hatch. These immature ants are fed and cared for by the worker. In some species the worker vary in size, and subcastes are sometimes distinguishable. This is especially true for the largest worker, which are often referred to as soldiers. In such species a division of labor correlated with worker size may be evident. Small worker may, for instance, tend the larvae, while the larger worker forage for food.

 

The body of an ant is divided into three major parts; a head, with elbowed or geniculate Antenna and variable mandible; an alitrunk, or mesosoma, which the wings (when present) and legs are attached to the alitrunk by a one or two-segmented waist. In addition to the unique metapleural glands, the proventriculus, serve as a storage tank for liquid. This storage capability makes it possible for these ants to regurfitate food for larvae and for other adults.

 

When new males and queens emerge from a colony, they usually engage in a nuptial flight, during which fertilization occurs. The male dies soon after the flight, but the female drops to the ground, sheds her wings, and either is adopted by an existing colony or sequesters herself in a cavity, where she found a new colony.

Cobra

Cobra is the name popularly applied to African and Asian snakes of the family Elapidae that are capable of spreading long ribs to flatten their necks into a hood when threatened. Included are six species of the genus Naja, as well as the South African ringhal (Hemachatus), king Cobra (Pseudohaje), and shield-nose cobra (Aspidelaps).

 

Cobra bites are potentially dangerous to humans. A few species, the ringhal, black neck cobra, and some species Asian cobra, can spray venom from their fangs accurately with human eyes causes immediate, severe irritation of the conjunctiva and cornea. If untreated, permanent blindness may result.

 

Cobra are large snakes, usually 1 m (3.3 ft) in length or longer. The king cobra, or hamadryad, holds the record length of 5.58 m (18.3 ft) for a venomous snake. Cobra are famous for their use by Oriental snake to visual cues, have a rather slow strike, and are of spectacular appearance.

 

The Indian cobra is a favorite of snake charmers because daylight hampers its ability to make an accurate strike. At night, however the venomous snake is extremely dangerous. Only 10 % of cobra bites are fatal. Yet it is estimated that cobra kill 10,000 Indians each years. 

Indonesian Animals

Unique Habitat

The magnitude of diversity in lowland rain forests across Southeast Asia is phenomenal, providing unique animal species with unique habitats. A multitude of both plant and animal species in the region is matchless in form and color. These astonishing features convinced a Western biologist. Alfred Russel Wallace, to draw an imaginary between the oriental and Australian Worlds of Plants and animals. The forest of Sumatra and Kalimantan, on the west of Wallace's line, contain Asian features, and are dominated by trees of the Dipterocarpaceae family. But forests in Maluku and west Irian (and Papua New Guinea), on the eastern part of Wallace's Line, exhibit Australian characteristics where Eucalyptus and Casuarina are dominant. Sulawesi, however, is extremely unique as it processes both Asian and Australian characters.

Uniqueness in forest features is associated with uniqueness in animal species. For example, the elephant, the largest herbivore in the region, can only be found in Sumatra (at one time it also occurred in Java). Other fascinating animals from the western region of Wallace's are rhinoceroses (Elephas maximus and Dicerorhinus sumatrensis), tigers (Panthera tigris), orang utan (Pongo pygmaeus), and tapir (Tapirus indicus). Tigers are reckoned to be restricted to Sumatra, as the Javanese tigers (Panthera tigris sondaica) have already become extinct. Orang utan is the most celebrated representative of the Indonesian animals kingdom, and can only be found in Sumatra and Kalimantan. The Tapir is a rare species in Sumatran rain forests, and is distinguished by its trunk-like snout but is hardly seen in the forests because of its black and white camouflage. The beautiful peafowl (Pavo miticus), the magnificent great argus (Argusianus argus), the talkative hill myna (Graculla religiosa), and the endemic Javan hawk-eagle (Spizaetus bartels) are only a few of fascinating Asian birds.

The Eastern region of Wallace's line is home to a different array of magnificent birds, marsupials and reptiles. Cuscus and tree kangaroos are typical of the Australian continent. Another very celebrated animal is the Komodo monitor which inhabits the island of Komodo. Padar and Rinca, in the Lesser Sundas. A few, amongst numerous, unique birds are: bird of paradise and bower birds, an ostrich-like cassowary, hundreds of parrot and cockatoo species, and the crowned pigeon (the largest pigeon in the region), which inhabit the lowland forests of west Irian, Maluku and its adjecent islands.

Capuchin

Capuchin monkeys, genus cebus, of the family Cebidae, are so named because their crown hair resembles the cowl, or capuche, of Franciscan friars. Among the most intelligent of New World monkeys, capuchin are 38 to 60 cm (15 to 24 in) long, the weight 1.6 to 3.6 kg (3.5 to 8 lb). they are called ring-tailed because they often carry their slightly prehensile tails coiled at the tip. Capuchin live in the top of large trees, rarely descending to the ground. They eat fruits, leaves, insect, young birds, and eggs. Popular as pets, they are the monkeys that traditionally pass the hat for organ grinders. The brown capuchin, C. apella, has tufts of hair on the forehead. On the head is a dark brown cap with a border. This species is common in South American forests. The tufted group includes three species. The white-throated capuchin, C. capucinus, has a coat of black with white in the pale areas and is found in Central America, in western Colombia, and along the Pacific coast of Ecuador. The white-fronted capuchin, C. albifronts, is yellowish to brown in color and is found in northwestern South America. The weeper with some white and a smaller cap. It is found in northern South America.

Bat

The bat is winged mammal, with the ability to fly. Its ability to maintain sustained flight, unique among mammals, result from the modification of hand like forelimbs into wings. Bats belong to the order Chiroptera. There are two suborders: the Megachiroptera (megabats) and the Microchiroptera (microbats). Bats are nocturnal or active at twilight (crepuscular). They are mainly tropical in distribution.

Most megabats have a claw on the second finger and an unspecialized shoulder girdle. Their average weight is more than 100 g (3.5 oz). The largest megabats, Pteropus vampyrus, weighs up to 899 g (31.7 oz) and have wingspan of 170 cm (67 in). In contrast, microbats have no claw on the second finger. Their average weight is less than 30 g (1.058 oz) as adults. The smallest microbat, weight from 1.8 to 2.0 g (0.063 to 0.07 oz) and has a wingspat of about 16 cm (16.3).

Nearly two-thirds of the 850 species of bats feed mainly on insects. All insectivorous bats are microbats. Fruit eater and nectar and pollen feeders may be either megabats of the family Pteropodidae of the Old World tropics. In other families of microbats, such as the Vespertilionidae and the Noctilionidae, bats are fish eaters. In India, Southeast Asia, Australia, and South America, several species in two families of microbats, the Megadermatidae and the Phyllostomidae, are carnivorous, eating birds, small mammals and reptiles.

The three species of vampires (blood-feeding microbats) all are found in the New World tropics. Vampires are usually treated as part of the family Phyllostomatidae. Vampires feed on blood obtained from mammals or birds. They use their sharp, highly modified teeth to make a shallow wound, and they secrete an anticoagulant in their saliva to inhibit clotting of the blood. The vampire's bite is painful but not usually dangerous, though the saliva may transmit certain dieses.

Bats have low rates of reproduction. Most species produce one or two young in a litter; bats of temperate areas have one litter a year, and those in tropical regions may have two. Some tropical bats are polyestrous and annually produce more than two litter.

All the Microchiroptera that have been studied and several species of dog-faced bats use Echolocation to orient themselves. Bats are not blind, however, and their eyes and sense of smell are well developed. Vocalizations, visual signals, and smell play important roles in the social lives of bats, which are among gregarious of the Mammalia.

Bee-3

Pheromones

The integrity of the colony is maintained by chemical secretion, or pheromones. Worker secrete pheromones from the Nasanov gland at the tip of the abdomen when they cluster, enter a new nesting site, or mark a source of nectar or water. The colony scent is recognizable by bees of the same colony because or its unique combination of components derived from the colony's particular collection of nectar and pollen.

 

When queens fly to mate, a mandibular-gland pheromones attracts the drones. The same produces an other pheromones, called queen substance, which worker lick from the queen's body and pass along as they exchange food with each other. The eaten pheromones in inadequate, the colony produces queen cells to supersede her.

 

The mandibular glands of workers produce an alarm odor, which serves to alert the colony when it is released at the site of the sting odor, which is released at sting area. Stingless bees bite leaves at intervals along their flight path to provide a scent trail of mandibular secretion.

 

Dance Language

The ability of honeybees to communicate direction and distance from the hive to nectar sources through dance "language" has received widespread attention. In 1973, Karl von Frisch received a Nobel Price for deciphering the language which consist of two basic dances; a dance in circle, for indicating sources without reference to specific distance or direction; and a tail-wagging dance, in straight run with abdominal wagging, the fewer runs per minute, the further away the source. Wing vibrations produce sounds at the same rate at the tail wagging and are have developed a robot "bee" that can communicate with other bees in this way.

 

The direction, or azimuth, to the food source is indicated by the angle of the wagging dance angle to the sun. Bees use the plane of polarization of the sunlight. Even when the sun is obscured by clouds, bees can detect the position of the sun from the polarized light emanating from brighter patches of sky.

 

Honeybees also have a built-in clock that appears to be synchronized with the store of nectar in flowers. Hence, honeybees making the rounds of flowers in search of nectar always seem to be at the right place at the right time.

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The Bee Families

Most of the 20,000 species are solitary bee. The queen constructs her own nest of one or more brood cells. She then stocks the cells with pollen and nectar to provide food for the larvae and deposits her eggs just before sealing the cell.

 

Some species are gregarious and place their nests in close proximity to each other. When such bees share a common entrance, a division of labor may be observed for example, one bee may guard the entrance against parasites or predators. Bee are considered truly social when there is a single queen, when a worker caste of non reproductive females shares in the construction of the nest and other duties, and when the larvae are fed gradually.

 

The Bumble Bee

Bumble bee (Bombidae) leave their nest in the autumn, and the fertilized queens hibernate in some protected place during the winter. In the spring each queen builds a nest of moss or grass, preferably in a deserted rodent nest. From scales secreted by abdominal glands, she makes a honey pot of wax and then makes a cell and half fills it with pollen before depositing her eggs in it. The queen covers the eggs with a layer of wax and sits on them like brooding hen, sipping honey from her pot. After the larvae hatch, they eat the pollen and grow, then spin cocoons in which to pupate. When the workers emerge, they cut away the upper half of cells and the remainder is used as a receptacle for nectar.

 

The larger worker maintain the covering over the nest and collect food, and the smaller ones care for the young larvae and do the inside work. The difference in size of worker is dependent on the amount of food they have available with honey. 

 

Only males are produced late produced late in the summer and female larvae literally may jettisoned to control the population. When workers lay eggs, the queen may chase the workers away and eat the eggs. If the queen dies or is removed, one of the larger workers soon takes her place.

 

Drone and Worker

Drone develop by parthenogenesis from unfertilized eggs that the queen produces by withholding sperm from the eggs laid in large drone cells. Drone lack stings and the structures needed for pollen collection; in the autumn they are ejected by the colony to starve, unless the colony is queen less. New drones are produced in the spring for mating.

 

Both queen and worker are produced from fertilized eggs. Queen larvae are reared in special peanut-shaped cells and fed more of the pharyngeal-gland secretions of the nurse bees (bee milk or royal jelly) than the worker larvae are. The precise mechanism for this caste differentiation is still uncertain. Although workers are similar in appearance and behavior or other female bees, they lack the structures for mating. When no queen is present to inhibit the development of their ovaries, however, eventually begin to lay eggs that develop into drone.

Bee-1

There are about 20,000 species of insects belonging to the Apoidea and the order Hymenoptera, including such important pollinators of plants as the bumblebees, the yellow-faced, or plasterer, bees, the economically important honeybees of the genus Apis, the only domesticated insects beside the silkworm.

Only about 500 species of bees are social, these include the bumblebees, the tropical stingless bees, and the honeybees. They form colonies of from several hundred to 80,000 individuals, organized in rigid caste system, and secrete wax from which they build their nests.

Most other species of bees either are solitary, secreting no wax and nesting in the ground, hollow plant stems, in the nest or others. The solitary bees, named for the young, include the plasterer, borrower, mining, mason, and leaf-cutter bees.

Bees and Wasps

Bees belong to the same order as wasp. Like wasp, bees have mouth parts adapted for both chewing and sucking, but the tongue is longer than the wasp's and better suited for gathering nectar from a greater variety of flowers. As adults, bees and almost all wasps feed only on nectar or honey, young wasps only insect and spiders, whereas young bees are fed only nectar and pollen. Nectar is a sugary substance produced at the base of petas in many flowers and made into honey by bees.

Some wasp like bees swallow pollen and nectar, which they regurgitate into the cells in which they lay their eggs. Most bees however, are distinguished from wasps by modifications that enable them to collect pollen. Bees have branched and feathery (plumose) body hairs. Female have brushes on their legs, and they use these brushes to remove pollen that sticks to the body hairs. The pollen is then stored under the abdomen or on the broadened hind legs. The parasitic cuckoo bees, however, can be distinguished from wasps only by the presence of the branched hairs characteristic of bees.