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Ants

Ants
Ants
Ants

Ants

Ants are social insect with few castes such as queen, workers and males. They established monomorphic and dimorphic workers depending on species.
Common ant species are as follow:

  1. Ghost ants, Tapinoma melanocephalum

    Ghost ant measured about 1.3 - 1.5 mm in length. They have dark head and thorax, translucent gaster and legs. The typical characteristic established by ghost ant is they emit a rotten smell when they are been crushed. They prefer sugary food as their main diet. They live outdoor, but can nest indoor if it is moist. They create nuisance to people especially household when the food is make avail indoor.
     
  2. Crazy ants, Paratrechina longicornis

    Crazy ant is about 3 mm in length. They are slightly dark brown or black in color, with long legged and have long and coarse hairs. They are general feeder but some prefer sugary food. Crazy ant is an outdoor species, but their workers forage indoor. They move in erratic ways when being disturbed which is one of the main characteristic to identify them.
     
  3. Pharaoh ants, Monomorium pharaonis

    Pharaoh ants is about 1.5 – 2 mm. The characteristics to identify a pharaoh ant are they are yellow-brown in color with a brown abdomen, black eyes with two small segments at the pedicel. Multiple queens exist in a colony. They prefer sugary and proteinaceous food. Pharaoh ant live indoor. They often damaged and penetrate the materials by chewing using their strong mandibles. 
     
  4. Weaver ants, Oecophylla smaragdina

    This species have two types of worker whereby the minor worker measured 7 to 8 mm and the major worker measured 9.5 to 11 mm. The queen is green or light yellow, while king is black. A queen take care of the entire colony and it will stay in one nest among numbers of satellites nest. Their diet consists of tiny insects and also intake nectar/sugary solution. They nest on trees whereby one colony may consist of several satellite nests containing eggs at several locations in one tree, or on several trees. It will bite when disturbed but do not sting when they are being alarmed. 

 

Life Cycle

  1. Ants undergo complete metamorphosis, experiencing 4 stages which are egg, larvae, pupa and adult respectively. 
  2. The entire process takes about 2-3 months depending on species and other factors such as food source, surrounding temperature and etc.
  3. The eggs are very tiny and white in colour.
  4. Larvae is legless, soft and immobile, it will moult few times to reach pupa stage.
  5. Pupa resembles an adult ant, but they are immobile, soft and white in colour.

 

Sign of Infestation

  1. Live Foraging ants 
  2. Active ant trails
  3. Ant nests/mounds