Marilyn E. Bridges, age 9, of Sheffield, n.b., Canada, for her question:
How do ants defend themselves?
Every day there are a few thoughtful questions about ants in Andy's mail bag. They are the favorite insects of many young readers, perhaps because some ants remind us of peop1e. But there are so many different types of ants that there is never time or space to answer ail the questions.
There are so many different ants that we could give a special kind to every man, woman and child in a small town. We need more than 2,500 different names for them. All of them are alike in many ways, but each kind has a few interesting ways of its own. Each little ant has sharp jaws to 0ite her enemies. Some spit bitter juices at their foes. A few have poisonous stingers in their tails. Some fall down and play dead, hoping to send :heir ant eating enemies away.
Hundreds of relatives 1ive together in a colony, for all ants love family life. The family home is a r1est, often tunneled in the ground. The queen mother and maybe one or two daughter queens stay home and lay lhe eggs. A few princely male ants also live in the nest. There are also nurseries for the precious eggs, the baby grubs and sleeping cocoons. The nest, of course, must be defended. Some nests keep troops of special soldier ants with extra strong jaws to fight off the family foes.
The little ant you meet along the path is a worker, foraging for food to feed the family. She has a slim neck, a very thin waist and six spindly legs. Her watery blood is greenish yellow, and she has no bones. But her body is shielded in a hard, crusty skin. On her helmeted head she has two jointed feelers that she uses to smell and taste
And touch. She sees, but not too well, with dozens of windows in her two round eyes.
And she has a pair of mighty jaws called mandibles. She bites them together sideways like a pair of pincers and uses them to defend herself and also for many other everyday duties.
If you hold a worker ant, she may feel scared and spit out a gob of bitter juices. A fire ant may give you a firey stab with the stinger in her tail. But any little ant is likely to nip a bit of skin in her jaws and hang on, even after you chop off her head. The jaws of the harvester ants can crush hard seeds, and the scissor sharp jaws of the parasol ant can snip leaves. Worker ants defend the nest from beetles, lizards and other foes. In some nests, soldier ants with even stronger jaws rip up the f1esh of lizards, mice and even bigger animals.
Most ants attack only their foes. But a few kinds go out and fight like ferocious warriors. Most of them live in hot, steamy jungles where they are feared by peaple and by all the animals. These fighting ants kill young birds and steal food from other ants. They also raid other ants for captives and carry them away to work for them as slaves.