Curious creatures are these ants, bees, wasps and termites. In and near every household of the world we meet one or more of them at any given time. All these come under one Order, Hymenoptera. There are much similarities than some dissimilarities among them. They are mostly social in nature and build colonies for themselves to dwell. Basically, in common (for example, ants) they have Workers, Soldiers, Kings (Drones) and Queens as members in their colonies. The Workers and Soldiers are sterile, wingless and are females; they develop from unfertilized eggs as diploid members. Winged males (kings or drones) are haploid and fertile! They eat and mate only. Winged queens are also diploid but fertile. A queen after growing to maturity. mates with a king in their nuptial flights. It stores the received sperms inside its body to fertilize its future eggs that are to be laid! It creates all alone the entire colony members! This sexual differentiation into males and females depends on the nutrition the larvae hatching out from the eggs receive (for example, in Honey Bees, feeding with Royal jelly makes the Queens class!).
Ants that are evolved from wasps are said to be mighty as they can move substances weighing fifty times their own weight! They are much communal, and have chemical sense that compensates for their weakness in eyesight.
Termites (White ants) digest cellulose present in the rotting wood and feed each other member with the resulting substance! I know about termites destroying woods within hours of their coming out of the earth! For this they build mud-covered channels towards the wood for the workers to traverse through (termites shun sunlight!).
Wasps frighten us with their stinging. They build their nest from the pulp made by chewing the wood pulp!
Honey bees are busy also in making their nest. The worker bees do this job with their wax!
Though there may be some exceptions in each of these four insects, similarities dominate as I said before. In evolution, did some ants go down deeper into the earth to become the white ants, and did some others go up in the air to become as bees and wasps? Or did they evolve down from wasps in the air in the reverse direction terminating down to the white ants? It may be also that both ants and white ants became reminiscent of their ancestor's life (wasp) and produced winged queens and kings and sent them to mate in the air(!)?
Leave the evolution matter as such. These wonderful insects still exist with us before our eyes without undergoing any such things like extinction, and go on exhibiting their wonderful life show since our childhood, and continue on to do so forever!
Related posts in this blog:
Paper Wasps drive you out!
Flying Termites of the Monsoon Season
Mud Wasps and Wonder Nests!
Wasp Nest with 'Live Feeds' encountered
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