The ant is one of the oldest creatures on Earth and one of the smallest, yet we have much to learn from it. Because of the way it works, it is often held up as an example. The ant has many qualities, and this useful friend of the environment has a varied way of life.

Ants live in societies and have a social life, living together in colonies. When two ants meet, they smell each other or use a chemical signal called a pheromone. This tiny creature has survived on Earth since more than about 100 million years ago. About 22,000 species of ant have been identified so far, of which only 250 are known in Bangladesh.

Ants are very far-sighted. They work all year to gather food for winter, because finding food will be hard in the cold. They move in groups to stay safe, and when they sense danger they spread the news to all in an instant. They follow a routine, with every ant's work divided up, and they try to finish their work within a set time.

Worker ants find food, carry it back to the nest and defend the colony against attack. An ant colony is sometimes called a super-organism, because all its members behave like one animal and struggle together to survive. Each ant is said to have a strong talent for leadership. Right decisions at the right time, care for one another and foresight explain why this creature from millions of years ago still survives. They are highly disciplined: every member's work is assigned and none spends the day idle.

Ants are found almost everywhere on Earth except cold places like Antarctica, and they are skilled at surviving hostile conditions. Because winter is not safe for them, they finish urgent jobs such as gathering food and preparing safe shelter in the warm season. Unless attacked, they usually do not bite.

Although light themselves, they can carry up to 20 times their own weight when needed. An ant has two stomachs: one holds food for itself, the other stores food for others, and ants share their food with the rest of the colony without condition.

The small ant has the largest brain among insects. According to the text, their brains have about 250,000 more cells than those of other animals. The text also says ants do not sleep, because they have no eyelids and cannot close their eyes.

Some ant species do not need sexual reproduction to multiply, reproducing through a special cloning process. Fertilised eggs develop into females and unfertilised eggs into males. By eating various harmful insects and reducing their numbers, ants play an important role in keeping the environment in balance.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.