Summary: How do ants create new colonies? Join Kiersten to find out the amazing way new ant colonies are born!   For my hearing impaired followers, a complete transcript of this podcast follows the show notes on Podbean   Show Notes:  “Tales from the Ant World” by Edward O. Wilson “Ant Biology” Ants Canada, https://www.antscanada.com Music written and performed by Katherine Camp   Transcript (Piano music plays) Kiersten - This is Ten Things I Like About…a ten minute, ten episode podcast about unknown or misunderstood wildlife. (Piano music stops)   Kiersten - Welcome to Ten Things I Like About… I’m Kiersten, your host, and this is a podcast about misunderstood or unknown creatures in nature. Some we’ll find right out side our doors and some are continents away but all are fascinating.  This podcast will focus ten, ten minute episodes on different animals and their amazing characteristics. Please join me on this extraordinary journey, you won’t regret it. On to episode two of ants, listeners! The second thing I like about ants is the life of a colony. I had no idea how complicated the life a colony was when I started researching this topic. Each species of ant will have specifics that differ based on how they obtain resources and where they choose to live, but the basic structure of the life cycle of a colony is essentially the same for all ants. It all begins with a virgin queen. When a colony reaches a certain size, and that size varies with each species, the current queen will lay an egg, or several, that will develop into a new young queen. She will develop wings, and as soon as she is able, will take flight from the existing colony. Her first flight is also her nuptial flight. She will emerge form the colony structure and alight on a leaf or rock and release a pheromone that says “Hello! Here I am!” And the males will come flying. Typically they want to mate with males of a different colony, but when males are scarce they will mate with males of their own colony. Diverse genetics is not something most insects have to worry about like mammals must. Depending on the species, the queen will mate with one or multiple males. Regardless, the queen will mate only once in her life. Sometimes mating takes place in the air and sometimes it takes place on that leaf or rock. Either way, they will each go their separate ways once the deed is done. The queen will wonder off looking for the perfect place to start her new life while the male, having completed the only thing he was born to do, will die or become food for a predator. Sorry, gentleman. For the new queen, no longer a virgin but with a spermatheca full of sperm (a quick aside: a spermatheca is a pouch in the abdomen where queen ants store the sperm obtained during mating) she follows her instincts to find the best home for her new colony. Based on species it could be a rotten log, a perfect dirt mound, a tree branch, or any number of other places. If she survives the nuptial flight, and that is a big IF, and she finds the perfect colony-building site, another big IF, she will break off her wings and settle in to begin pumping out eggs.  It can take a queen anywhere from 24 hours to a week to lay eggs. The first eggs laid will be the first workers in the colony, so…they will be female. That’s right! It’s a woman’s world in the ant universe. Disney Pixar’s A Bug’s Life  is wrong, it would have been a female ant that saved the day while the males just laid around doing nothing! All working ants in a colony are female. And here comes the harsh truth about the males: According to E. O. Wilson, one of the foremost authorities on ants in the world, quote “Adult males, with the exception of competing for access to virgin queens, and the food and grooming they receive from their sister workers, are pathetic creatures.” End quote. Males have small brains and big genitalia. They are only necessary during the nuptial flight and mating success is not guaranteed, only death is g