Ant is one of the most common animals on this planet and is almost everywhere. But there is a question that has always troubled zoologists, that is, how many ants on the earth are combined?
Dense Ant Swarm
However, this problem has been solved. Researchers from my country's Hong Kong University and the University of Würzburg in Germany published a report in the Journal of the National Academy of Sciences in the United States. After their rigorous estimates, there are currently at least 200 million ants on the earth.
The estimate of the total number of ants is not a simple matter. There are currently about 600 species of ants on the earth, plus subspecies, about 15,700 species, such as Honey Ant Subfamily, Pseudo-leafed Ant Subfamily, , and stinky Ant Subfamily.
For this purpose, scientific researchers used standardized methods and summarized 489 research data on ant population density from different regions of the world, and obtained a brand new global ants number, which is 2 to 20 times higher than the previous estimates.
Ants hit U-shaped bridge
But even so, the current data may still be conservative, because the relevant statistics from Africa and northern Asia are also limited, and the actual total number of ants may be more.
What is the role of studying the number of ants?
As the most extensive insect in the world, ant plays an important role in most ecosystems around the world. They can spread pollen or help plants spread seeds, flip and increase effective nutrients in the soil.
In addition, the total number of ants is of great help to scientists to study the distribution of ant population and number, and to grasp the impact of factors such as climate change on the habitat and migration of ants.
ant upright
Is anant good insect or a pest?
Because there are many species of ants, there are also pests for ants. For example, Xiaohei ants are a kind of beneficial insects. They can digest some food waste and debris, which helps improve the environment. The white ants we hate the most in our family are pests, which not only destroy furniture, but also damage the rhizomes of plants.
What are the extraordinary abilities of ants?
ants can lift objects with a weight of 400 times, and can check objects with a weight of 1,700 times, according to the study of entomologist , 10 ants can work together to carry objects with a weight of 5,000 times, and are well-deserved "strongman".
Ants lift elephants
There are rumors on the Internet that ants are two-dimensional creatures. In fact, this is wrong. Ants are unbiased three-dimensional creatures. They also have length, width and height, and they can stand upright. In addition, although the ants' vision is only 3°, which is very narrow and has a low visual sense, their sense of touch is very sensitive and can perceive slight changes in three-dimensional space.
How much weight is the ant?
Generally speaking, the weight of ant is between 25 and 60 mg, and the weight of queen can reach more than 120 mg. If calculated based on the average weight of 50 mg, the world's 200 million ants weigh 2 billion tons, which is much more than the total weight of humans in the world.
queen
In addition, the biomass of ants worldwide (calculated in dry carbon) exceeds 12 million tons, which is more than the sum of biomass in all mammals and birds in the world!
It can be seen from this that although ants are small, their energy is really considerable! "A thousand-mile dike is destroyed by ant", this is not an exaggeration at all.
