A queen ant is the sole reproductive member of an ant colony, responsible for laying all the eggs that create the rest of the nest’s population. While ant species exhibit great diversity, the queen is born with wings in the vast majority of species, meaning she can fly. This ability is temporary, tied to the single most important event in her existence: reproduction.
The Purpose of Nuptial Flight
Queen ants fly only once in their lives during a synchronized mass event called the nuptial flight. This aerial journey serves the twin purposes of dispersal and mating with winged male drones. The flight ensures genetic diversity, as queens mate with males from distant colonies, preventing inbreeding.
The timing of this flight is not random; it is coordinated across neighboring colonies by specific environmental triggers. These triggers typically involve warm temperatures and high humidity, often following a significant rainfall, which softens the soil for the queen’s next step. The coordinated release of millions of winged ants, known as alates, from many nests at once helps overwhelm predators, offering safety in numbers.
During the flight, the virgin queen releases pheromones to attract males. Mating usually takes place in the air. A single queen may mate with multiple males during this period, storing the collected sperm in a specialized internal organ called the spermatheca. This sperm supply is enough to fertilize all the eggs she will lay for her entire lifespan, which can last for over a decade.
The Transformation: Shedding Wings and Founding a Colony
Immediately after successfully mating and landing, the queen’s focus shifts entirely from flight to colony foundation. Her first action on the ground is to deliberately remove her wings, a process known as dealation. She accomplishes this by snapping them off at a weak point at the base, often using her legs.
The wings are no longer useful and would only be a hindrance in the underground chamber where she will spend the rest of her life. The large flight muscles in her thorax are broken down and metabolized. This process converts the muscle tissue into stored energy and nutrients, which she uses to produce her first batch of eggs and feed the developing larvae.
This solitary period of colony founding is called “claustral foundation” for many species. The queen seals herself into a small founding chamber and does not leave to forage, relying solely on her body’s reserves to rear the first generation of worker ants. She must survive without food until her first workers emerge to begin foraging for the colony.
Distinguishing a Queen from Other Flying Ants
Identifying a true queen ant, also called a female alate, among the swarm of other flying ants can be challenging, as male ants (drones) also have wings. The most reliable way to distinguish them is by observing their physical build, especially the size and shape of their body sections.
A female alate possesses a larger, more robust thorax, which is the middle section of her body where the wings are attached. This size is necessary to house the powerful muscles required for her single mating flight. Male drones, by contrast, have slender, more wasp-like bodies with smaller heads and disproportionately large eyes.
After a queen has mated and shed her wings, she is still identifiable by the presence of small scars where the wings were once attached. Her abdomen is also typically larger than that of workers, as it is built to hold the reproductive organs needed to lay thousands of eggs. If a large, wingless ant with these scars is found wandering alone, it is almost certainly a newly mated queen searching for a location to establish her new colony.