Toilet arrangements are an issue for social insects, and many species have systems in place to avoid soiling their own nests.
Honeybees leave the hive to defecate – even very young ones, which fly for no other reason, while many ants build a refuse pile, or kitchen midden, outside the nest or in a separate chamber, where they dump faeces, debris and fallen comrades. Leaf-cutter ants reduce the risk of infection further by delegating midden duties to a group of workers.
Only the common black garden ant Lasius niger is known to avail itself of dedicated toilet facilities. While most waste goes to the midden, calls of nature are answered in certain allotted corners of the nest. Researchers discovered this after adding food dyes to the ants’ meals.
- They look like ants, they act like ants – but these destructive, house-wrecking little terrors are no ants
- "Their nests are made up of thousands of climate-controlled rooms, resembling a structure not too dissimilar to an urban office block"
- "Raiding parties are the soldiers, bearing enormous heads armed with long, scissor-like mandibles capable of dismantling prey piece by piece..."
