While most ants encountered daily are wingless workers, certain members of an ant colony develop wings for a specific, temporary stage of their life cycle. These winged individuals play a distinct role in the survival and expansion of the ant species.
The Role of Wings in Ant Life
Wings in ants serve a singular purpose: reproduction and the establishment of new colonies. This function occurs during the “nuptial flight,” where winged ants take to the air to find mates. This aerial mating ritual ensures genetic diversity by allowing individuals from different colonies to interbreed. The flight typically occurs under specific weather conditions, such as warm, humid days, often after rainfall, which helps coordinate mass emergence across colonies.
Wings are a temporary adaptation, not used for daily foraging or defense. The ability to fly allows these ants to disperse over distances, preventing inbreeding and enabling the founding of new colonies away from the parent nest.
Identifying Winged Ants: Which Ants Have Them
Only reproductive ants, known as alates, develop wings. These include future queen ants and male ants, both of whom are born with wings. Female alates, the virgin queens, are generally larger than the winged males.
Worker ants, which constitute the majority of an ant colony, are always wingless. The winged forms emerge seasonally, often during late spring or summer, as the colony matures and prepares to expand. Once mature, alates remain within the parent colony, awaiting environmental cues for their nuptial flight.
Winged Ants vs. Termites: Key Differences
Winged ants are frequently confused with winged termites due to their similar appearance and swarming behavior. However, distinct physical characteristics differentiate the two. Winged ants possess elbowed or bent antennae. Their body also features a constricted or “pinched” waist, creating a clear separation between the thorax and abdomen. Ants have two pairs of wings of unequal size; the front pair is larger than the hind pair.
In contrast, winged termites have straight, bead-like antennae and a broad, uniform waist, making their body appear less segmented. Termites also have two pairs of wings, but both pairs are of equal length and are often longer than their body.
What Happens to Ant Wings?
After the nuptial flight and successful mating, the wings serve no further purpose for the new queen. She sheds her wings, often by chewing them off or rubbing them against a surface. This shedding marks her transition from a winged reproductive to a colony-founding queen. The queen then uses the energy from her now-vestigial wing muscles to sustain herself during the initial stages of establishing a new nest and laying her first eggs.
Male ants, having fulfilled their sole purpose of mating, die shortly after the nuptial flight, often within a few days. The queen will then dig a chamber and begin laying eggs, becoming the central figure of a new ant colony.