Passage 11
Many incidents have been observed showing the
cleverness and courage of ants. Science has discovered many other interesting facts about ant life. These make us wonder if these little creatures are almost as
intelligent as human beings.
Some ants of South America do farming. They take pieces of leaf to their nests, chew them up, make their beds on which a kind of fungus grows which is their food. Similarly some ants keep cows and milk them. These cows are a kind of green fly called aphids They give out a sweet honey like liquid from behind when their sides are stroked. Is this not just like human beings
keeping cows ?
There are ants which keep slaves. Red ants found in
Europe take their slaves from certain black ants which are smaller in size. When they want slaves they attack nest of black ants and carry off their eggs. On hatching, these black ants are treated as slaves. From their birth
they are taught to obey.
Answer the following questions
1. Give a suitable title to the above passage.
ans:
2. Why ants are considered as intelligent as human beings?
ans:
3. What are aphids ?
ans:
4. Where are farmer ants found ?
ans:
5. How slaves are made by ants?
ans:
Answers
2. Individual ants use diverse information in different situations and can learn entirely new ways to navigate. Ants respond immediately to new situations. They can adjust to different levels of threat and decide how aggressive they should be and how much energy should be used.
3. Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids.
4. Many species of ants, including several Megalomyrmex, invade fungus-growing ant colonies and either steal from and destroy these fungus gardens, or they live in the nest and take food from the species. Fungus-growing ants are only found in the Western Hemisphere.
5. Slave-making ants are brood parasites that capture broods of other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony. ... The slave-makers may either be permanent social parasites (thus depending on enslaved ants throughout their whole lives) or facultative slave-makers.
✎Δnsɯer࿐
1. Ant's life .
2. Individual ants use diverse information in different situations and can learn entirely new ways to navigate. Ants respond immediately to new situations. They can adjust to different levels of threat and decide how aggressive they should be and how much energy should be used.
3. Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids.
4. Many species of ants, including several Megalomyrmex, invade fungus-growing ant colonies and either steal from and destroy these fungus gardens, or they live in the nest and take food from the species. Fungus-growing ants are only found in the Western Hemisphere.
5. Slave-making ants are brood parasites that capture broods of other ant species to increase the worker force of their colony. ... The slave-makers may either be permanent social parasites (thus depending on enslaved ants throughout their whole lives) or facultative slave-makers.