Jennifer Weaver, age 10, of Visalia, California, for her question:
What are those small white objects that ants carry around?
Many people think that those little white bundles are ant eggs. In fact, pet stores call them ant eggs when they sell them in food packages for tame turtles. Nevertheless, this is not so. An ant egg is no bigger than a pinpoint, hardly big enough to be seen. As the baby insect grows up, her body goes through a couple of amazing changes that do not look at all like an ant. At one stage, she may be a little white bundle and grown up nursemaid ants often carry her around.
You see this happen when you step on a busy ant hill. The upset shatters dozens of tiny tunnels and rooms that the worker ants have built in the crumbly soil. In the teeming ant world, this is a disaster and every little worker dashes to repair the damage. The first things they tend to are the children. There are dozens of them in various stages of development, tucked away in underground nurseries. Some are clumps of pinpoint sized eggs. Others are grubby larvae in assorted sizes. Some are pupa ants sleeping in papery sacks.
When disaster strikes, the worker ants first rush to the rescue of the oldest youngsters. These are the helpless pupae, asleep inside their cozy sacks. The pupae of certain ants are encased in white cocoons that look like miniature bags of flour. These are the little white bundles that the ants rescue first. A sturdy worker grabs a pupa's loose skin in her pincers, hoists it aloft and carries it away from the falling debris to safety.
Later the rescue squad tends to the grubby larvae. These are pale, helpless youngsters with pointed heads and tails and no legs. Some are bitsy babies just hatched from their eggs. The older ones are larger and almost ready to advance to the pupa stage. When the assorted larvae are carried to safety, the rescue squad tends to the eggs. These are wadded in a ball and kept in an underground nursery. A sturdy worker may carry the ball to safety or the job may be done by a team of two or three.
The scurrying ants seem to be in a panic. But this is not so. Every step of the rescue is well organized and done just so. Some of the workers are trained nursemaids and all of them treat the youngsters with great care. They must use their fierce; sharp pincers to carry their precious burdens. Yet not one of the helpless children gets stabbed or injured.
The nursemaids have plenty of practice in toting the children from place to place. One of their duties is to make sure that the nursery air is properly warm and moist. For example, when the top of the ant hill gets too hot, they carry all the youngsters to cooler rooms downstairs. Sometimes they carry white bundles outdoors for a sunny airing. These are the pupae asleep in their papery cocoons. Soon they will hatch into adult ants and help the other workers with their duties.