Ants' Nests and their Inhabitants

Moribund Ants Leave Their Nests to Die in Social Isolation

Animal societies provide perfect conditions for the spread of infections and are therefore expected to employ mechanisms that reduce the probability of transmitting pathogens to group members [1-4]. Death in nature rarely results from old age but commonly results from diseases. Leaving one's group to die in seclusion might be an efficient way of minimizing the risk of infecting kin. Anecdotal o...

The Compound and Mixed Nests of American Ants

http://www.jstor.org The Compound and Mixed Nests of American Ants. Part II. The Known Cases of Social Symbiosis among American Ants Author(s): William Morton Wheeler Source: The American Naturalist, Vol. 35, No. 415 (Jul., 1901), pp. 513-539 Published by: for The University of Chicago Press The American Society of Naturalists Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2454620 Accessed: 20-05-201...

Bees: Their Nests and Nesting Sites

Ants and Their Parasites 2013

1 El Colegio de la Frontera Sur, Departamento de Conservación de la Biodiversidad, Avenida Centenario Km. 5.5, AP 424, 77014 Chetumal, Quintana Roo, Mexico 2 Centre de Recherches sur la Cognition Animale, CNRS-UMR 5169, Université de Toulouse UPS, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse Cedex 09, France 3 IRBI, CNRS-UMR 7261, Faculté des Sciences, Université François Rabelais, Parc de Grandmont, ...

How ants find their way

Path finders: Humans can use higher cognitive functions to combine information from a range of sources when they’re trying to find their way, but how do insects achieve this? (Photo: Getty Images.) Just over 80 years ago, a young biologist in Leiden, in the Netherlands, handed in a PhD thesis that was only 29 pages long and had been written up in a mad hurry, as the author was keen to join a sp...