What Happens After Ants Fly and Mate Might Surprise You

An ant’s normal mode of locomotion is crawling. However, at certain times of the year, something remarkable happens. At certain times, some ants in the colony develop wings, leave the nest, and fly. There is a lot more to discover about this strange and fascinating behavior. This short clip gives you a glimpse of a queen leafcutter ant shedding her wings, but this is only part of a complex story. Read on, and we will explain all the intricate details of ant lifecycles and reproduction.

Ant Colony Social Structure

The ant in the short clip is a leafcutter ant (Atta cephalotes), but their behavior is typical of many other ant species. They live in large colonies in a huge nest structure that looks a bit like a soil mound from above. Beneath the surface, however, there is an intricate network of tunnels and chambers where the ants grow fungi to feed on. The structure grows over time and has multiple entrances.

Within the colony, there is a complex social structure and a reproductive caste system. At the center of colony life is the queen. She lives longer than the other ants and is the only reproductive member of the colony. The workers are all sterile and divide out the tasks necessary for the successful functioning of the group. For example, the ‘foragers’  leave the nest to find leaves and bring them back. Inside the nest, ‘processing ants’ cut the leaf into small fragments and ‘gardening ants’ crush them into pellets. Special workers defend the colony, and others groom and protect the queen. At the bottom of the social hierarchy are the refuse workers who dispose of waste. They are segregated from the rest of the workers and are prevented from leaving the refuse heap by the other workers! Body size and proportions of individual ants vary by their designated occupation. In general, the larger and older workers perform the duties that require traveling outside the nest. This detailed system of tasks and roles is underpinned by an excellent communication system using smell and pheromone detection.

Mating and the Nuptial Flight

Once a year, the winged males and females (alate queens) leave the nest to mate with ants from other nests. These are the only workers who are potentially capable of breeding and are sometimes called ‘sexuals’. A colony can produce several thousand alate queens, all of whom are, in theory, capable of setting up their own colony. However, many of them will die before they can succeed. They are heavily preyed on because their nutrient-rich abdomen (gaster) is attractive to hungry predators. This concentration of fats is meant to sustain the queen as she establishes her new colony, as she will not eat during this time. Dispersing queens are preyed on by birds, bats, ground mammals, and other ant species. The queen in the clip has, so far, escaped this fate.

The mating flight is also called a nuptial flight, and this behavior is also seen in social bee species. The sexual ants can detect the ideal temperature and humidity for the flight to start, and they all emerge from the nest. All of the colonies in an area will start their nuptial flights at the same time. You may have seen this called ‘flying ant day’, and it can be a startling sight!

During the nuptial flight, the female will mate with several males in the air. She stores the sperm provided by the males for the rest of her life and will never have to mate again. She will use this stored sperm to fertilize over 500 million eggs during her lifetime, and her offspring may have different fathers depending on which sperm she uses. Her colony can last for eight or nine years.

Establishing a Nest

First, however, she has to find a location for her new colony. What you see in the clip is a female leafcutter ant getting ready to set up her own nest. To do this, she no longer needs her wings. So, she either snaps them off (as you can see in the clip) or bites them off. She also ingests the muscles that once powered her wings, as they are no longer needed. The protein provides energy for her next tasks.

The new queen excavates a single nest chamber and spits out a piece of fungus that she has carried from her old colony. She fertilizes the fungus with her own secretions and lays eggs. The care of this first batch of eggs is entirely down to her until the eggs hatch into workers. Once the eggs hatch, the new workers take over nest duties, and the queen is fed and cared for by her adult, sterile daughters as she continues to lay eggs. Meanwhile, the males who provided their sperm will just die!

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