Why is it that ants always seem to carry or 'sniff' around dead ants. Are they going to eat them, or may some kind of record so the dead ant's position in the 'ant heirachy' can be replaced? (Just out of interest, because I've always wondered?)
2007-06-08 23:46:42 · 7 answers · asked by irashymisfit 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
Ants that don't respond to another's signals, either through scent or antennae touching is either an enemy, or dead. Either way, it is seen as food. Ants have become a very successful life form because they don't care if their food is their dead cousin. Protein is protein. They do not have burial rituals, or a heirarchy within the colony. Each ant is born to do a certain job, which it does until it dies, they do not change roles. The loss of one, or many ants, will not make any difference.
2007-06-09 01:18:59 · answer #1 · answered by Labsci 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
Ants are very chemically inclined. Their lives are regimented by minute traces of various chemicals. When an ant dies from old age, usually a few months from birth, it emitts Oleic acid which in ant language translates to "dumpster material" . The ant dumpster is outside the nest around the entrance where you often see material from inside the nest. That would be waste material such as ant poop and dead bodies plus other ground and organic material not wanted by the female worker ants.Male ants don't do any work.
2015-05-04 00:43:09 · answer #2 · answered by newhaveninc 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
ants carry off their dead so that they can perform complex funeral rituals to their ant gods. if an ant dies and is not propperly attoned for by the other ants then their gods smote them down in cataclysmic down fall of giant feet.
2007-06-08 23:50:33 · answer #3 · answered by Jason L 3 · 3⤊ 0⤋
I would imagine they are returned to the hive to be consumed. However, your notion of replacing the ant in question is certainly an interesting one :-)
2007-06-08 23:54:48 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
To ants, food is food.
2007-06-08 23:51:31 · answer #5 · answered by spir_i_tual 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
they carry them back to the anthill for what could be considered their version of a proper burial.
2007-06-08 23:49:31 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
They most likely eat them.
2007-06-08 23:48:41 · answer #7 · answered by รզlεսռց ☆ 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋