Single Gene Shapes the Toil of Ants' Fighter and Forager Castes: Researchers studying the social behavior of ants have found that a single gene underlies both the aggressive behavior of the ant colony ...

Leafcutter ants live in highly organized colonies where every ant has a job, and now researchers can flip those jobs like a switch. By manipulating just two neuropeptides, scientists can turn ...

Ant foraging behaviour is a paradigmatic example of sophisticated social coordination in the animal kingdom. Central to their success is the use of chemical signals, particularly trail pheromones, ...

Ants make a series of clever architectural adjustments to their nests to prevent the spread of disease, University of Bristol ...

Ants may be tiny critters with tiny brains, but these social insects are capable of collectively organizing themselves into a highly efficient community to ensure the colony survives. And it seems ...

Great discoveries lie at the edge of chaos, and nature provides perhaps the best inspiration for finding order in anarchy. Fish school, birds flock, fireflies sync and ants colonize. This type of ...

Why would an ant walk in an endless circle until it dies of starvation and exhaustion? Known as an ant death spiral, or circular milling, this deadly phenomenon can cause hundreds of ants to follow ...

Ants are social insects and the Solenopsis invicta species -- known as the fire ant -- is no exception. The social interactions of this invasive insect, which comes from South America, are framed ...