2023-11-10 11:00:18
So, are these ants just lazy or do they have hidden functions? For Serge Aron, biology researcher at ULB, this inactivity does not necessarily reflect a long-term reality. Some ants may indeed be inactive at the time of study, but this does not mean that they were not active at other periods, for example at the beginning or end of their life..
Furthermore, it is possible that these individuals, apparently lazy, contribute in other ways to the functioning of the anthill. They may have less visible activities like laying eggs or storing food for example.
In some species, there is actually a particular type of ant called candy ants, a sort of traveling fridge which stays at the nest and stores food brought back by other individuals.
For Daniel Charbonneau, the theory of secret laying is another possibility: if the queen is generally the only one to reproduce, we observe in certain species workers capable of laying eggs and producing males. The researchers also realized that the least active ants tended to have more eggs than the others…
If the enigma is not yet completely resolved, inactive ants would indeed have a role to play despite appearances. The inactivity of certain ants is therefore not necessarily synonymous with laziness…
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