do ants ever sleep & how big is there brain?
931340
I saw on a National Geographic filler that ants don't sleep. \nAnts don't have large brains, they don't need them as they would be wasted.....brains are very expensive energetically to maintain so animals don't want more than is required. \nAnt colonies work on simple principles to maintain themselves. For example, when a forager ant comes across a prey item and goes back to the colony to recruit help the number of foragers is not determined by the colony but by the size of the prey item. \nWhen the prey starts to be moved by the ants it is a signal that no more recruits are required. This shows that no conscious effort or knowledge is required by the colony, ants therefore don't need intelligence to carry out what on the surface may seem like intelligent decision making....simple brains.
768563
The general answer is that ape has a larger brain because it is a large animal compared to monkey.  There are some really small monkey species.
625680
I don't believe that ants sleep because they are always busy doing something.
180403
I was just doing a study of this the other day.  These are my results: (type of ant, IQ score, and comments)\n\nFire Ants - 53 - their just stuuuuuupid\n\nCarpenter Ants - 125 - they have to pass the carpenters exam and are always brushing up on their skills.\n\nAcrobat Ants - 75 - Don't need brains to join the circus.\n\nPharaoh Ants - 176 - Its great to be king\n\nLittle Black Ants - 98 - faily intellegent during the month of June, August, October and April.  \n\nPavement Ants - 69 - How long would you live and be able to learn if you lived on the pavement?  \n\nCrazy Ants - ??? - Couldn't get them down from the roof because they were guiding all the ships away from the rocks being the lighthouse that they think they are.\n\nOdorous House Ants - 122 - When you smell that bad, all you have are brains\n\nArgentine Ants - 92 - bon de rappeler qu'à cette époque la dictature argentine était considérée par nos amis communistes comme une bonne \n\nGhost Ants - 118 - could have been higher but they all passed into the light before the test was finished.\n\nWhite Footed Ants - 107 - Don't you just love these shoes????\n\nThief Ants - 198 - These results are pending an investigation.
486582
Think of an ant crawling on a balloon. A big balloon. The ant can't tell that the balloon isn't flat, because he's so small in comparison to it, and the balloon is so large.
832639
Well, if you think in terms of physics, then no, it doesnt. Force of a fall (that which leads to pain) if a function of both mass and gravity. Gravity will act the same way on the ant as it would on a Volkswagon, however the ant weights significantly less, so the force at which it hits the ground is much less. As an added feature, due to air and wind resistance, the ants landing would be relatively comfortable. No is we attempted this in an air free chamber, the landing wouldn't be so soft!
1048609
yes my dear insects have brain in the form of nerve complexes a network which seem to be like brain and what is the purpose of having a brain that is they are also organism every organism has need to think over its certain life time activities brain help them to coordinate their body with all parts and tell them abt all the physiological functions to be performed at different times
854129
well if you consider that some individual colonies have more people than some small cities, then definatly. It is hypothesised that the weight of ants on the planet exceeds the total wieght of every person on the planet.\nLets look at it form a different perspective, it takes roughly 2.5 million ants to weight 170-180 pounds which is a rough average human weight, now, there are about 5 billion people on the planet, thats quite a bit, but then you should consider that the number of ants is 2.5 million times that number......I dont even think they have a name for such a number!
1001736
Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant or http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant\n\nI don't know whether are you asking about the ratio of physical size, or the ratio of number of them
711162
ants do sleep, or at least have a stage where they respond noticeably worse to external stimuli and are inactive. You just don't see ants sleep because they do that in their nest, not outside. You don't see many people sleep on the streets either, do you?\nWhy we sleep is a still unsolved and very intriguing question. Especially for something that essential. Clear is that people (or animals) can even die for lack of sleep. As it is a complex subject look up more details at the link below.
1122606
ants are considered "ectotherms"...and thus take on the temp of the environment they are living in.  If it is warm, they are warm.  If it is cold, they are cold. (Cold blooded is an ancient term and outdated.)
151792
- Ant communication is primarily through chemicals called pheromones. Because most ants spend their time in direct contact with the ground, these chemical messages are more developed than in other Hymenopterans. So, for instance, when a forager finds food on its way home (found typically through remembered landmarks and the position of the sun), it will leave a trail along the ground, which in a short time other ants will follow. When they return home they will reinforce the trail, bringing other ants, until the food is exhausted, after which the trail is not reinforced and so slowly dissipates. A crushed ant will emit an alarm pheromone, that in high concentration sends other ants nearby into an attack frenzy, and in lower concentration attracts them, while a few ants use what are called propaganda pheromones to confuse their enemies.\n\n- Ant trails have no intrinsic polarity; that is to say, an ant walking on a straight non-branching trail cannot tell whether it is walking to or from the nest. Trails always divide as a "Y", with the two secondary trails at a 60 degree angle to each other, and it is the geometry at trail junctions that give ant trails polarity. (Jackson et al, 2004)\n\n- Like other insects, ants smell with their antennae, which are long and thin. These are fairly mobile, having a distinct elbow joint after an elongated first segment, and since they come in pairs they provide information about direction as well as intensity. Pheromones are also exchanged as compounds mixed in with the food interchanged in trophallaxis, giving the ants information about one another's health and nutrition. Ants can also detect what task group (e.g. foraging or nest maintenance) other ants belong to. Of special note, the queen produces a special pheromone without which the workers will begin raising new queens.\n\n- Ants attack and defend themselves by biting, and in many species, stinging, in both cases sometimes injecting chemicals into the target. Of special note here is formic acid.\n\n- While many types of animals can learn behaviors by imitating other animals, ants may be the only group of animals besides humans in which interactive teaching behavior has been observed. Knowledgeable forager ants of the species Temnothorax albipennis directly lead naive nestmates to newly discovered food sources by an excruciatingly slow (and time-costly), process of 'tandem running'. The follower thereby obtains knowledge that it would not have, had it not been tutored, and this is at the expense of its nestmate teacher. Both leader and follower are acutely sensitive to the progress of their partner. For example, the leader slows down when the follower lags too far behind, and speeds up when the follower gets too close, whereas the follower does the opposite (Franks and Richardson, 2006).\n--------------------
130791
Ant colonies will fight each other, and ants can tell if an ant is from another colony through the use of pheromones, so the ant cannot join another colony.  Ants are also dependent on one another for survival.  They protect each other, and communicate the location of found food by using pheromones.  Without it's colony mates, a single ant will probably starve to death or be killed by other ants or some other predator.
1079386
it is a good question,better one is can the ants live in that environment.
1152123
i dont think so............ \nits a good way of observing ants
988188
African Driver Ants are vicious.  Some tribes leave their dead out for the ants for one night, and collect the clean bones in the morning (This is NOT an exaggeration).
500715
I just made it yesterday out of paper and you can't believe it can fly for more than a second... and also you can make living beings sit in it ... ants//// \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nI am sorry I don't know the answer to your question. :(