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Their mass raids are considered the pinnacle of collective foraging behavior in the animal kingdom. The raids are a coordinated hunting swarm of thousands and, in some species, millions of ants. The ants spontaneously stream out of their nest, moving across the forest floor in columns to hunt for food. The raids are one of the most iconic collective behaviors in the animal kingdom. Scientists have studied their ecology and observed their complex behavior extensively. And while we know how these raids happen, we know nothing of how they evolved. Book of Exodus. pp.10: 13–15. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. 14 And the locust went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. 15 For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
The stationary phase, which lasts about two to three weeks, begins when the larvae pupate. From this point on, the prey that were previously fed to the larvae are now fed exclusively to the queen. [8] The abdomen ( gaster) of the queen swells significantly, and she lays her eggs. At the end of the stationary phase, both the pupae emerge from their cocoons ( eclosion) and the next generation of eggs hatch so the colony has a new group of workers and larvae. After this, the ants resume the nomadic phase. [5] [8] Behaviour and organization of a bivouac Colony fission [ edit ] Smil, V. (2002). "Worldwide transformation of diets, burdens of meat production and opportunities for novel food proteins". Enzyme and Microbial Technology. 30 (3): 305–311. doi: 10.1016/s0141-0229(01)00504-x. Several organisations around the world monitor the threat from locusts. They provide forecasts detailing regions likely to suffer from locust plagues in the near future. In Australia, this service is provided by the Australian Plague Locust Commission. [44] It has been very successful in dealing with developing outbreaks, but has the great advantage of having a defined area to monitor and defend without locust invasions from elsewhere. [45] In Central and Southern Africa, the service is provided by the International Locust Control Organization for Central and Southern Africa. [46] In West and Northwest Africa, the service is co-ordinated by the Food and Agriculture Organization's Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in the Western Region, and executed by locust control agencies belonging to each country concerned. [47] The FAO also monitors the situation in the Caucasus and Central Asia, where over 25 million hectares of cultivated land are under threat. [48] In February 2020, in an effort to end massive locust outbreaks, India decided to use drones and special equipment to monitor locusts and spray insecticides. [49] Control [ edit ] Preparing to flame locusts in Palestine, 1915
a b Kronauer, Daniel J. C.; Schöning, Caspar; d'Ettorre, Patricia; Boomsma, Jacobus J. (2010). "Colony fusion and worker reproduction after queen loss in army ants". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 277 (1682): 755–763. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2009.1591. PMC 2842746. PMID 19889701. Most ant species will send individual scouts to find food sources and later recruit others from the colony to help; however, army ants dispatch a cooperative, leaderless group of foragers to detect and overwhelm the prey at once. [3] [5] Army ants do not have a permanent nest but instead form many bivouacs as they travel. The constant traveling is due to the need to hunt large amounts of prey to feed its enormous colony population. [5] Their queens are wingless and have abdomens that expand significantly during egg production. [8] This allows for the production of 3–4 million eggs every month and often results in synchronized brood cycles, thus each colony will be formed of millions of individuals that descend from a single queen. These three traits are found in all army ant species and are the defining traits of army ants. [3] [11] Nomadic and stationary phase [ edit ]
Majd, Hooman (23 September 2008). The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The paradox of modern Iran. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. pp.165ff. ISBN 978-0-385-52842-9. These species have two behavioral phases: a stationary (or sedentary) phase and a nomadic (or wandering) phase. In the stationary phase, which lasts between two and three weeks, the ants reduce their activity. During this time the larvae transform into pupae and the queen’s abdominal area increases in size due to the large number of eggs she produces. As far as is known, the coordinated behavior of clonal raider ants is one of the most complex social behaviors that can be induced or studied in the lab. The authors are currently working on a detailed study of how individual ants behave during the course of the raid, and how the structure of the raid responds to variation in environment and colony composition. Bombay locust – Nomadacris succincta". Locust Handbook. Humanity Development Library . Retrieved 3 April 2015. Hu G, Lu M-H, Reynolds DR, Wang H-K, Chen X, Liu W-C, et al. Long-term seasonal forecasting of a major migrant insect pest: the brown planthopper in the lower Yangtze River valley. J Pestic Sci. 2019;92:417–28.a b Franks, Nigel R.; Fletcher, Charles R. (1983). "Spatial Patterns in Army Ant Foraging and Migration: Eciton burchelli on Barro Colorado Island, Panama". Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. 12 (4): 261–270. doi: 10.1007/BF00302894. S2CID 30296073. Interaction with humans and animals [ edit ] Ancient times [ edit ] Locust detail from a hunt mural in the grave-chamber of Horemhab, Ancient Egypt, circa 1422–1411 BC a b c d Dingle, Hugh (1996). Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move. Oxford University Press. pp.273–274. ISBN 978-0-19-535827-8. Runge CA, Martin TG, Possingham HP, Willis SG, Fuller RA. Conserving mobile species. Front Ecol Environ. 2014;12:395–402. Lenoir, A., D’Ettorre, P., & Errard, C. (2001). Chemical ecology and social parasitism in ants. Annual Review of Entomology, 46, 537–599.
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