Ants.

Ants are small insects, which have been walking on this earth for about 130 million years. 12,500 species have been classified out of an estimated 22,00! Ants are easily identified by their elbow-like antennae and recognisable body structure.

Ants are social insects and form colonies that can range from a few dozen to millions! Thier colonies are highly organised which can occupy almost any territory. Every colonie has one or two fertile females called 'Queens'. (Male ants are called drones or workers). The Queen ant is mother to most of the ants in the colony. Its because of these colonies that ants are now so common. They have colonoised almost every landmass on Earth!

Defense.

If ants are being attacked they will fight by either biting their prey with their strong pincers, stinging them or even spit chemical acid like formic acid at their predator. The bullet ant is considered to have the most painfull sting out of any insect, not usally fatal to humans but the sting is given the highest rating of pain on the 'Schmidt sting pain' which is a scale to say how painfull stings from insects are. THe schmidt sting pain scale have discribed it as 'Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel'. Although the sting of a bullet ant can be extremely painfull the bite of a jack jumper ant can be fatal although there is a cure which has been developed. this picture is of a bullet ant.

Reproduction

There are four stages to an ants reproduction. Eggs, larvae,pupae and the adult. The egg is when the queen has just layed the egg and its unconscious, the workers lay unfertlised eggs so that the larvae can feed. The larvae is when the ants are babies but they dont look like ants the are small white ovals, the pupae is when the ants makes a cocoon around its self and when the ant is fully covered dramatic changes will be made to its body thats when its turns into an ant. Finally the ant turns into an adult. The whole life cycle of an ants takes 6-10 weeks. Queens live for 15 years or around that, and worker live for about 7 years. this is a picture is to show the life cycle of ants.

this is a short video with some interesting facts about ants.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er-OnJCn1gg&feature=player_detailpage