Post by Myrm on Nov 6, 2011 10:31:50 GMT 1
The ant's body, like most insects, has a hard outer covering called the exoskeleton, or cuticle. It functions as armour, protection against dangerous solar waves, an attachment base for internal muscles, and also prevents water loss. It is divided into three main parts; the head, thorax, and abdomen, as shown below. There is also a small segment between the thorax and abdomen called the petiole, and is either in one or two parts according to species; some ants have a scale on the petiole itself.
The antenna are the most important sense organs that the ant possess and are jointed so that the ant can extend them forward when it wishes to investigate an object. It can retract them back over its head when in any dangerous situation, for example, a fight. They are the ant's nose, ears, and eyes. Although ants do have eyes their eyesight is generally very poor; some ants, such as some of the tropical army ants are totally blind, whereas other ants, such as the red wood ant Formica rufa have quite good eyesight and are able to see moving objects up to 10 cm away. Like all insects the eye is "compound", meaning that it is made up of many eyelets called ommatadia, the number of these eyelets varies according to species. In Formica cunnicularia there are 460 ommatadia, in Lasius niger there are 120, and in Lasius flavus only 45. These are true for the worker castes; male ants tend to have more ommatadia than other castes. The ocelli, which are generally found on top of the heads of queen ants, are thought to aid aerial navigation by sunlight
The antenna are the most important sense organs that the ant possess and are jointed so that the ant can extend them forward when it wishes to investigate an object. It can retract them back over its head when in any dangerous situation, for example, a fight. They are the ant's nose, ears, and eyes. Although ants do have eyes their eyesight is generally very poor; some ants, such as some of the tropical army ants are totally blind, whereas other ants, such as the red wood ant Formica rufa have quite good eyesight and are able to see moving objects up to 10 cm away. Like all insects the eye is "compound", meaning that it is made up of many eyelets called ommatadia, the number of these eyelets varies according to species. In Formica cunnicularia there are 460 ommatadia, in Lasius niger there are 120, and in Lasius flavus only 45. These are true for the worker castes; male ants tend to have more ommatadia than other castes. The ocelli, which are generally found on top of the heads of queen ants, are thought to aid aerial navigation by sunlight