Despite popular belief, ants operate without a queen at the head hierarchy. A colony functions with no one in charge, there's no central control, and no individual instructs another.
All the ants that you see walking around are sterile females, the workers.
Giving the fertile female the label "queen" is misleading. She is not the colony figure head and has no authority in an ant colony. Simply put, she is the ovaries, the reproductive function, of the super-organism.
Tags: Frequently Asked Question | Behaviour
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