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Genre：Video
Author：BrainPOP
Size：1MB
Date Published：October 11, 2005
Description:
Ants is a BrainPOP episode that launched on October 11, 2005.
Transcript:
Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby
Tim and Moby are walking through dense woods. Moby comes upon an anthill. He raises his foot to step on it. Tim objects.
TIM: Hey, they worked hard to build that.
Moby stops and gives Tim a sideways glance. Tim reads from a typed letter.
TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, I'd like to know more about ants. Please tell me. Thanks, Kevin. Ants are pretty cool creatures, and the planet is covered in them.
Moby covers his mouth in shock.
TIM: In fact, some scientists estimate that ants make up as much as 20 percent of the combined mass of all land animals. Ants are related to wasps and bees, but most ants don't fly.
An animation compares the ant to images of a wasp and a bee.
TIM: They're born with wings, but most lose them right after birth.
An animation shows three ants with wings that fade away.
TIM: Like other insects, ants don't have bones. They have an exoskeleton, a hard covering that protects them and helps them move.
An animation shows an ant walking back and forth.
TIM: Their bodies are divided into three main parts.
An diagram of an ant labels the three main parts: head, thorax, and abdomen.
TIM: The head has two compound eyes, a set of jaws called mandibles, and jointed antennae.
An image shows the ant’s head, with the parts labeled.
TIM: The antennae detect chemicals called pheromones given off by other ants. With pheromones, an ant can leave a trail to food or identify ants from its own colony.
An animation shows an ant detecting pheromones. A second animation shows a quickly moving ant leaving a trail of pheromones behind.
TIM: And when an ant dies, its body releases a pheromone that tells other ants to remove it from the nest.
An image shows a dead ant giving off pheromones and being carried away by other ants.
TIM: All six of an ant's legs are attached to its thorax.
An image shows an ant's thorax.
TIM: Finally, the abdomen holds the internal organs and sometimes a stinger.
An image shows an ant's abdomen.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Like a lot of insects, ants don't have hearts or lungs like ours. Instead, an ant breathes through tiny valves in its exoskeleton. And blood is pumped toward its head by a long, thin tube.
An image shows a valve on the ant’s thorax. A red tube is shown running the length of the ant’s body.
TIM: But really, the coolest thing about ants is how their societies are organized. They live in big groups called colonies that can be made up of millions of individual ants. And the ants work together, with each one serving a specific function.
A large number of ants begin crawling up Moby's body and toward his head. Moby and Tim look uneasy. Moby starts brushing the ants off his body and they all disappear.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Most ants are one of three kinds: workers, drones, and queens. Male ants are called drones who have just one job, mating with the queen.
An animation shows a drone ant with wings.
TIM: They've got wings so they can fly after the queen, but they only live a few days, dying after they mate.
An animation shows a dead drone.
TIM: Most female ants are workers, who can live for up to three years. These workers go through three stages as they grow up. At first, they take care of other ants in the colony, like the helpless young, called larvae. When they're a little older, workers begin to dig and tend to the physical nest. And finally, they head out to forage and to defend the colony.
TIM: Images show a worker ant coming out of an egg and progressing through its life cycle as Tim describes.
TIM: Some females grow up to be queens who have just one job, laying eggs! Many nests have only one queen at a time, but some kinds of ants will have two or even more.
An image shows an ant laying eggs.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Some queens can live up to 30 years, longer than a lot of mammals. There are close to 12,000 ant species in the world, and some species have really sophisticated behavior.
MOBY: Beep.
TIM: Well, leafcutter ants grow a special fungus to eat, and they can even figure out which leaves make the fungus grow best. Amazon ants can't feed themselves. Instead, they enslave ants of other species. And some ants actually herd caterpillars, taking them out to feed and then bringing them back to the nest and collecting a sweet liquid the caterpillars produce.
Images show the behaviors of leafcutter ants, amazon ants, and ants herding a caterpillar, as Tim describes.
Moby looks uncomfortable. Tim turns to him.
TIM: You still want to step on that nest?
Moby looks down. A trail of ants has formed a message that reads, We know where you live, Moby. Moby looks at Tim and shakes his head no.
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