ants are in the family Formicidae, they are related to sawflies, bees, and wasps.
with bees and wasps they make up the order Hymenoptera.
ants and bees evolved from a wasp ancestor, and wasps evolved from a sawfly ancestor.
ants are eusocial insects that live in colonies.
the merriam-webster dictionary defines eusociality as "living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the nonbreeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group."
several other types of insects live this way, and also a mammal!!
with ants, a lot of the time there's only one queen who lays eggs continuously for years and she only needs to mate once.
Sometimes theres multiple queens, and sometimes theres no queen but workers who reproduce and have dominance conflicts over who gets to reproduce!
along with laying eggs that become workers, queens lay eggs that become winged queens and males.
they hang out in the nest until it is time for them to disperse, like plant seeds!
sometimes this is different, due to differences in mating strategies and whatnots, ants are so varied and beautiful.
some species have massive colonies, and some colonies are only in the double digits. youre jealous.
ants are everywhere, on the sidewalk, in your house, in your pants.
they live on almost every continent!
they havent quite made it to antarctica yet but i believe in them.
give them a few million years, they'll get there.
they are very successful animals, they have adapted to all habitats (except antartica but like i said, give them a chance), from extremely hot and dry deserts to well inside the arctic circle.
i once tried looking up the heat tolerance of a desert species but it was just a bunch of dumb math problems and no real answers so i gave up!
(i did glean that it apparently had something to do with the size of the individual)
ants eat a wide variety of things, many species are carnivorous, many species are herbivorous, and many species are scavengers.
one time mr eo wilson called them the "dominatrices of the insect fauna"..... why he say that.....