I remember hearing this somewhere - that ants stretch and yawn, just like humans do, before they start their day’s work. It sounds a bit suspect to me.
Anyone got the straight dope on ants?
Argh, I made a cool post and the board ate it…
Anyway, I did a Google search for ants yawn and came up with mostly “Useless Trivia” sites. One site did provide a cite (Actually, two - 1980 Farmer’s Almanac and “2001 Useless Facts”) but it still sounds kind of fishy.
There is a web site called www.myrmecology.org that has a message board (all about ants!). Maybe if no one here knows, you could ask there and report back.
I bet with the popularity of ant farms, someone’s gotta be able to confirm or deny this.
Well, ants have no lungs so they can’t yawn. I doubt that they even sleep.
Ants breath through spiracles on the sides of their abdomen, as do all other insects. A yawn for an insect would not look similar to a yawn for a vertebrate.
I cannot say whether ants stretch their limbs (including mandibles) upon awakening.