How many ant paws

Resting in the forest or sitting on a bench near the house, you can see nimble little insects that are running all the time somewhere on their legs, carrying something, rushing about important matters, developing good speed. How many limbs do you need to have these workloads to do this work tirelessly day after day? One involuntarily wonders about how many legs the ant has.

Structure

Ants belong to the superfamily ant, detachment of hymenoptera. Body size varies in the range of 3-30 mm, depending on the climate zone. The largest species amaze with their appearance.The family consists of three castes: males, females and working individuals. In males and females there are wings, the ant workers have no such organ. The history of insects begins with the time of dinosaurs. Millions of years passed, dinosaurs became extinct, and ants, which had a primitive structure, survived and survived in two species with 3 pairs of legs, regardless of size and habitat.

The ant's body is divided into three distinctly marked segments. The limbs of the insect are attached to the middle part, called the breast, consisting of three sections, to which 6 legs are attached.

Interesting!

Despite all the changes that have occurred to them over a sufficiently long period, the number of paws in the ant has remained the same, this is what distinguishes them from their counterparts: ticks, spiders and crustaceans.

The appearance of the ant

The front legs are more developed, located in the upper part of the chest and have a special device in the form of a brush, the back ones have spurs. The leg of the ant is divided into 3 parts: the thigh, shin and foot, ending with a claw.

Insect limb functions

Each pair of ant legs performs specific tasks. He cleans the antennae and other paws with the front legs and a brush, fights back with aliens.Kogotkami their legs, clinging to the minimum surface roughness, the insect can crawl up and down on any material, including glass, which is not available to cockroaches.

All 6 legs of an ant are used to transmit signals by the smell resulting from the development of strongly smelling pheromones by special glands located on the insect's paws. This smell serves as a guide for other family members. The more ant legs run this way, the more noticeable the direction becomes for the whole community.

Interesting!

Interesting fact was recorded as a result of research. If an ant accidentally closes its path with a fresher trail, it will begin to run in a circle. His brothers, following the smell, will also run in a circle and so on until they are completely exhausted. This can lead to the death of the family, if there are no other more visible landmarks by which the ants will change the direction of movement.

The legs of the ants are very strong. They put them wider than the plane of the body, therefore, they withstand and carry a load 20-50 times larger than their own weight. This phenomenon is easily explained in terms of physiology.The muscle cross section changes disproportionately with decreasing body size, hence the ratio of muscle mass to body mass in an ant is significantly higher than in humans.

Insect limb functions

Desert insects use legs to measure distance. They remember the number of steps after each change in the angle of motion. The way back is done, taking into account the amendment in the direction, leaving the number of steps unchanged.

Weaver ants build their nests out of leaves with the help of legs and chewing apparatus. Some people press the edges of the leaves to each other with paws, other insects fasten them with a special substance, which is released by the larvae. Such anthillbeing in limbo is very convenient for living a whole colony.

Interesting!

The speed of movement on their paws of ants from the family of phaetons can reach 4 km / h. They live in the extreme conditions of the deserts of Asia, Africa and America, withstand temperatures up to + 50 ° C and are considered the fastest-moving insects in the world, after lingering in the sun more than the allotted time, they burn the paws and simply die.

Australian bull ants easily swim a distance of 15 cm using their legs, and also jump up to 50 cm in length, using not the legs, but the jaws, which push off from the ground.