All Rights Reserved. There are queens, male reproductives, soldiers, workers, and in some cases soldiers. Social insects share communal responsibilities in rearing the young and there are overlapping generations.
Ants live in large colonies.
Workers consist entirely of non-reproductive females and may be of a number of different sizes and forms and specialized for different tasks such as foraging, nest defense or brood rearing. Preferences for food depend on the ant species and the stresses that occur seasonally. For example, Argentine Ants will eat proteins in the Spring, while they are nursing brood. In the summer months, when water may be scarce they abandon the proteins in favor of sugarwater-like honeydew. Some ants are attracted only to sweets, some only to fats, and other ants mainly on seeds.