The fertilised female removes her wings by working them backwards and forwards, pulling them with her legs and mandibles, or rubbing them leaf litter, small stones, grass stalks, or anything nearby.
In some cases young females which have been fertilised on, or near, their own nest, will be brought back by the workers, who help them to remove the wings.
The shedding of the wings by a fertile female alters her behaviour permanently, causing her to become less bold, and to avoid exposure to light where possible (often becoming completely photophobic).
In some species, the artificial removal of a virgin female's wings has the same effect upon her as the loss of the
wings to a fertile one. This is the reason that lack of wings isn't a sure indicator that a female is indeed fertile.
An old queen will, if removed from her natural nest will again carry out all the labours necessary for the starting of a new colony, even if she has lived an uneventful life for many years beneath the ground, being fed and cleaned by her workers, and doing little except lay eggs.
The queen ant when laying lowers her head and raises her gaster. An egg appears, and is is quickly extruded, but can remain for some time at the tip of the abdomen before deposited on the ground.
If presents, the workers will pick up the eggs and collect them in a heap, sometimes even removing them from the body of the female, drawing them out as they appear.
Workers can be observed constantly licking and caressing with their antennae the queen's gaster when she is laying. In some cases the queens will lay eggs on the march and these are at once picked up by the workers.
New queens (and also workers which lay) will remove their own eggs, bending the gaster forward between their legs, and
pulling out the ovum with their mandibles. The eggs of ants are extremly small, even those of the largest species, in proportion to their size. They are white, or yellow in colour, varying in shape in different species, being round, elliptical, and consist of a delicate shell or chorion enclosing a thin liquid yolk.
Tags: Morphology & Physiology | Behaviour
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