I notice in my house...whenever an ant gets squished and not picked up, another ant comes a little while later and carries it away. Why is this? What do they do with their dead?
2007-04-09 13:34:37 · 10 answers · asked by :) 5 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
They get added to the protein stock. Once an ant is dead, it can't identify itself (by antenna touching etc) as coming from the same nest as its comrades, so it is seen as food by the other ants. Ants aren't intelligent enough to be squeamish about eating a relative.
2007-04-09 14:26:44 · answer #1 · answered by Labsci 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
They definitely do not eat them. Why they carry away their dead?... Why do we bury our dead in dedicated fields and pay a lot of money for gravestones? Well that's why the ants do, they're all part of the same colony, and part of the same family. They even have a "tomb" for the dead, which is a chamber where they bring all the dead.
2016-05-21 02:34:09 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Usually they are put on the midden pile outside the nest, because a dead ant smells of oleic acid. This is not always thought to be full proof, though.
2007-04-09 13:46:08 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
ants are very disaplined ecologists
they take them for recycling
and ofcourse to have them identified by their closest relatives
2007-04-09 22:08:54 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
They eat it, because all becomes food and nourish the living and so the circle of life continues.
2007-04-09 13:41:53 · answer #5 · answered by NAZARIEL 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes they do this. They probably recycle them if you know what I mean.
2007-04-09 18:28:16 · answer #6 · answered by 354gr 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They eat them.
2007-04-09 13:42:04 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
To eat.
2007-04-10 00:46:10 · answer #8 · answered by Perry B 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's protein.
2007-04-09 13:42:30 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
cause they eat it :(
2007-04-10 09:37:26 · answer #10 · answered by nobody 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋