Tagged With: flying ant survey
Years of surprises from flying ants
By Dr Rebecca Nesbit and Professor Adam Hart who ran the Royal Society of Biology’s Flying Ant Survey. Five years ago, we embarked on the Flying Ant Survey to ask what we thought was a simple question: when does ‘flying ant day’ occur each year? The data, which has just been published in the journal Ecography, … Continue reading »
Chewing off her wings – the queen ant’s rite of passage
By Rebecca Nesbit from the Society of Biology There has been a long, slow build up to flying ant day this year. The first sightings of winged black garden ants came early, with hundreds of records for the flying ant survey already in by the third week of July. The first major flying ant day, … Continue reading »
Can gulls get drunk on ants?
Rebecca Nesbit from the Society of Biology has been working on the flying ant survey On Friday I received a phone call asking ‘are seagulls in Devon acting weirdly because of flying ants?’. The answer was very likely yes – flying ant day is a special day for gulls, and for many people the excited … Continue reading »
Flying ant facts
Rebecca Nesbit, Society of Biology Submit your flying ant sightings! We have had an overwhelming response to our flying ant survey and some very interesting questions about flying ants. So I thought I’d bring them all together, along with a couple of videos of ‘my’ flying ant colonies in Hertfordshire. You can also read about … Continue reading »
How does an ant decide what to do?
We eat when we’re hungry, but social insects have to make decisions which will support the colony not just themselves. They typically divide labour as well as reproductive duties. Even in ant species such as Lasius niger where workers are not split into different physical ‘castes’, some workers stay in the nest while others leave … Continue reading »
Species of the week: the black garden ant
To coincide with the launch of our flying ant survey, Christina Catlin-Groves from the Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust has written a guest blog with little-known facts about these well-known ants. Also known as the pavement ant, the black garden ant (Lasius niger) is the most common ant seen in towns and gardens. They nest almost anywhere, … Continue reading »
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