Larvae: The early form of an ant, (looks like a maggot), where it eats proteins and eventually metamorphosizes into a cocoon or pupae.
Cocoon: The stage of ant development that most ant species do, where they spin a silk ‘home’ around them to be able to metamorphosize into an ant.
Pupae: The stage of ant development that some ant species perform, much like cocoons except they metamorphosize into an ant without creating a cacoon around themselves.
Brood: The collective word for all of the ants’ eggs, larvae, cocoons or pupae.
Polygyne: Meaning that species or colony of ants can have multiple laying queens in the same colony.
Monogyny: Meaning that species or colony of ants can only have 1 laying queen in the same colony.
Outworld: The part of an ant home where they can forage or collect food which usually holds substrate, it's usually a plastic container.
Nanitic worker: The first workers produced by a queen which are much smaller than normal-sized workers.
Majors: The soldiers produced in a colony which can be identified by a larger body, head and abdomen. These majors have the main job of hunting and defending the nest because they are stronger than the normal sized ant.
Drone: Male ant that fertilises the queens.
Alate: A queen (female) or drone (male), that has recently hatched from a colony, have wings, and are not yet fertile.
Nuptial flight: When alates from different colonies fly and meet up to fertilise the queens. The drones die shortly after mating, but the queens go off and start their colony.
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