As often happens in the Spring, I saw an ant crossing our kitchen floor this AM. Rather than stomp him, as others do, I scooped him up in a tissue and deposited him outdoors.
What happens to a single ant released (probably) far from his home nest? Is he just as doomed as if I had flattened him?
Was he perhaps lost in the first place? There were no other ants around.
I would have guessed he was looking for food and knew his way back. If he had found food, he would have left a scent(I believe that’s how it works) and others would have come.
Moving him outside? Depends. Some ants use the sun, just like bees, to find their way home. I would guess, and this is a total guess, that he is in trouble because he got moved by something and didn’t do it himself.
I’m not an etymologist, but I agree. I think that ants lay down a chemical trail that they and other ants can follow. As said, if food is found she follows the trail back and tells the others, who then follow it back to the food. Putting the ant outside, I suspect that it would be attacked by other ants, eaten by another insect or animal, or wander about until she starves to death.
Interesting question. I suppose it’s possible that there are many familiar scent trails around your home, so the ant would just have to meander around until it ran across a sister, or a scent trail leading home.
We consider such lone intruders scouts or spies. Squash them, we have a no tolerance policy, after having been invaded a couple of times. Sucks.
What happens to an ant that hitches a ride -say on an article of clothing or piece of food or whatever- and ends up in a completely new area that’s blocks or even miles from the nest? Are they doomed to die?
Yes, an ant that is isolated from its nest and can’t get back will die. They will just wander around until they starve.
Many ants find their way back and forth from the nest by means of scent trails. However, they can also use landmarks and solar and other cues to navigate back to the nest.
I don’t feel sorry for them - there are more tons of ants in the world by weight than humans, or so I’ve heard. I’ve set out ant poison where they’re supposed to eat it and carry it back to the nest and so kill off the others. It takes every ounce of willpower not to stomp that son of a bitch into a black smear when I see one investigating the ant traps.
Unless they come across some other ants or another ant nest–at which point the isolated ant will be immediately killed as an interloper.
Some slight nitpicking,
It’s a she, actually. The males of the species just sit on their behinds watching TV and drink beer while their sisters do the work around home.
The word you want is entomologist.
http://www.dwightsilverman.com/fireants.htm
“Fire Ants are not lovable. People do not want fire ant plush toys. They aren’t cuddly, they don’t do little tricks, they just bite you and leave red stinging welts that make you want to cry. That’s why they have to die, and they have to die right now.” :mad:
hope someone makes a youtube vid about these ortho commercials.
But what is the history of that word? 
Not necessarily - it depends on the type of ant. For example, different colonies of Argentine ants (really small black ones) appear to also operate as one big mega-colony:
A cousin of mine was once fiddling with his keys on his front porch when he noticed he was standing in the midst of a colony of army ants crawling up his legs.
nevermind