When choosing pets, people usually stop at cats, dogs, and occasionally get fish, parrots, etc. In fact, our planet is inhabited by a huge number of animal species, and it is not necessary to choose from the standard options, and not all of them are suitable (allergies, expensive furniture). Here I want to introduce you to one unusual pet.
This article will focus on keeping insects at home. When people hear the combination of the words "insects" and "house", they immediately imagine cockroaches, flies, mosquitoes, and the word "pests" appears in their minds. Occasionally, people imagine another insect as a pest - ants. Today we will talk about them.
Let's think about why people have pets? They are useful, there are animals for meat, dairy, some lay eggs, and some help humans, such as dogs and horses. But today it is unlikely that cats are kept in high-rise buildings for the extermination of mice, and dogs for hunting in the forest. A person wants to have an unusual friend, to be able to care for someone, and often to learn. It is people who want to learn something new and have exotic animals: these can be snakes, lizards, sometimes even crocodiles.
Those who have children will probably understand that it is interesting to observe all kinds of animals and insects in nature. But the city conditions do not allow this, therefore, an excellent help for the development of the child will be the opportunity to keep a piece of nature in his apartment.
So we got to the main topic - ants. I would like to clarify for parents whose children beg to have ants, or just for people with standard views, what it is. Unfortunately, the whole problem is precisely in the lack of sufficient knowledge of zoology. Therefore, ants are considered all pests, or generally nasty creatures that scatter. And if we are talking about the maintenance of their house, then usually there is just a misunderstanding in my head how to contain such a huge number of insects that are rapidly trying to scatter throughout the apartment and certainly crawl under their clothes.
Everyone studied at school, but because of the diversity of the animal world, it is very difficult to navigate who and who is, so be more open to new information.
Ants are social insects that live in families. Here I must immediately make a reservation that further we will talk about the most common species, since the total number of them is so huge that they have not yet been studied, and each species has its own nuances of lifestyle and appearance. Initially, when everything goes well in the anthill, with the help of special feeding and care, the female ant workers hatch a new queen and a drone (male), these guys live safely in the anthill and even do some work. But then summer comes, this is the time when all the queens and drones from different anthills fly out to mate. Since they have wings, they usually do this right in flight, and a partner from another anthill is always selected. The time when this happens is different for everyone, both in time of the beginning and in duration. After fertilization, males usually fall prey to predators, since neither the uterus nor the male is accepted back.
But the queen forms a new family. The seed received from the male lasts for a whole life, and she has a very long one, which is why the ant's queen has earned the status of the longest-living insect, she lives up to 25 years. The uterus begins to fertilize its eggs inside itself in order to obtain other females. These females (worker ants) develop from egg to larva, and then go into the state of imago (a formed ant). The whole process takes place with gentle care of the uterus. When the first worker ants appear, they immediately begin to form a colony, get food, take care of the brood.
Ants living in an anthill do not seek to crawl out of it and leave the uterus. The only option is scout ants, which come out of the nest in search of prey (insects, glucose, seeds), but then they tend to return back to their nest. Therefore, even at home, if an ant crawls out of a dwelling called formicaria and cannot find its way back, it will either return or simply die in a few days (so much is it a social animal).
You can write about these creatures for a long time, most likely I will make a series of review articles if people show interest. This type of hobby, called myrmikperstvo, is quite popular in Russia. For example, I know that Stas Davydov is also fond of this.
Before you are going to start them, be sure to read in different sources about the peculiarities of the life of certain species, which species are best suited for beginners. And on the Internet there are already enough shops selling ants and necessary accessories. These pets will greatly surprise your friends, delight children, and also show what real work and teamwork is.
