--- title: Ants: colonies, queens, farmers and living bridges — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Ants: colonies, queens, farmers and living bridges», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: One ant on its own is not very clever, but a colony of thousands works like one big animal that finds food, builds, far --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Ants: colonies, queens, farmers and li… # Ants: colonies, queens, farmers and living bridges Lesson 238 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 16 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/0/) — One ant on its own is not very clever, but a colony of thousands works like one big animal that finds food, builds, farms and defends itself. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/1/) — Drop a crumb on the kitchen floor and soon a line of ants is marching to it: the first ant left a smell trail and the others follow it. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/2/) — In the nest a queen lays the eggs and her daughters, the workers, do all the other jobs; no ant gives orders, each one follows simple rules. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/4/) — Ants leave smell trails called pheromones; when a trail leads to good food, more ants follow and lay more smell, so the trail gets stronger. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/5/) — In a nest the queen lays the eggs, and the workers, all females and sisters, care for the young, dig and fetch food. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/6/) — Some ant queens can live for nearly 30 years, the longest-lived insects known. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/7/) — On «flying ant day» young queens and males fly out to mate, and each new queen pulls off her wings and starts a new nest. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/8/) — Leafcutter ants do not eat leaves; they chew them to grow a fungus garden and eat the fungus, and they farmed long before people did. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/9/) — Some ants guard aphids from ladybirds and stroke them for sweet honeydew, and some keep aphid eggs in the nest over winter. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/10/) — Army ants link their bodies into bridges and even a living nest called a bivouac, with no ant in charge. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/11/) — In floods fire ants link legs into a floating raft with the queen and young in the middle, and the raft can float for weeks. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/12/) — Ants can carry many times their own weight, because small animals are strong for their size; a dog-sized ant could hardly stand. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/13/) — The bullet ant of South America has one of the most painful stings of any insect. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/14/) — Ants carry dead nestmates to a rubbish pile, which keeps germs away from the nest, recognising death by a smell; a live ant dabbed with that smell gets carried out kicking. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/15/) — Termites are sometimes called white ants but are not ants at all; they are closer to cockroaches, and their colonies have a king as well as a queen. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/238-ants-colonies-queens-farmers-and-living-bridges/16/) — Some honeypot ant workers swell with sweet liquid and hang from the nest roof like living jars, storing food for hard times. - ← previous: [Animal minds: what dogs and cats feel and understand (and do cats really chase mice?)](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/237-animal-minds-what-dogs-and-cats-feel-and-understand-and-do-cats-really-chase-mice/) - next →: [Bees: the waggle dance, the hive and honey](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/239-bees-the-waggle-dance-the-hive-and-honey/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)