THE LEADERSHIP LESSON OF ANT..

The ants worked as a team: I will form a team, bringing professionals together. The ants trusted one another: I must do away with the notion that only by working alone can I ensure quality. The ants were open: I will share the idea with like-minded people. When ants discovered food, they informed others, who came along and helped. The ants were partners and of different sizes: . As much as possible, each team member will get assignment based on his capability. The ants were diligent and focused: The team must keep working, even slowly. Deadlines will give us focus. The ants regrouped: I will be open to try new ideas if present ones are not working.

11 Great Lessons That We Can Learn From Safari-Ants

When I need a real inspiration, I look at nature. Nature is amazing, real, wonderful, well designed and in harmony than man-made things. I look at animals, I look at flowers, I look at plants I even sometimes look at people. From nature I draw great stuff, great inspiration and great insights.

Safari ant For a few days now, I have been thinking about safari ants. Safari ants have taught me very big lessons. Among them is never to turn back, if faced by an obstacle, either climb it, go around it, but do not turn back. Keep going. Safari ants are also known as army ants, driver ants or siafu in Kiswahili. They are very small insects found in tropics particularly in East Africa and Central Africa. They are four legged, blackish brown in colour. They mostly live in an anthill. Army ants are divided into four classes, the queen (female ant that has the full reproductive capacity), worker (any female ant that lacks the full reproductive capacity), drones (male) and soldier. Soldiers have a big head and pincer-like mandibles. When the food in their hill dwindles, ants leave that hill to look for food. Strangely, an army ant never moves alone. Instead ants move in large groups, sometimes of up to 100m ants.

Safari ant column In the course of their movement, ants do not have a well designed roads or paths to follow. They design their own pathways. Ants are designers and architects of their own roads. The ants move in very long and sometimes crooked columns. The soldiers build walls so that the weak ones can move in the middle of the column. The soldiers keep their mandibles wide open to ensure they bite any intruder. Unfortunately, if an ants bite, they do not release the grip even after the ants body is severed from the head. It is better for an ant to die rather than leave the intruder. When I was a child, we used to stop on the road and try to intercept the ants from moving towards a certain direction. However, despite our concerted efforts, ants never turned back. Actually ants never turn back even if they find an obstacle. If the find a wall they climb it, if they find a rock, they go around it, if they find a river, they go along it. So in the mind of ants, there is no plan B of turning back. When the ants reach their destination they build another ant hill. Each of the class of ants play a specific role to ensure they live in harmony and achieve intended objective. Below are 11 lessons we can learn from ants. 1. You are inadequate but you can still make it Ants are very small but they are sometimes a real menace to humans. If they invade a house they wreck havoc to the occupants especially at night. You may think that you are not good enough. You may be thinking that you are not like so and so. This is the time to move on. Use what you have-remember moses of the bible and the rod. Do not wait until you have amassed big qualifications or fat accounts. It is time to make it within your limitations. Like ants, you may be small but you are equipped to make it.

2. Design the path of your life Get your life out of autopilot, direct it. Be an architect of your life. Small insects like ants can design their roads; we should also design our life. Live according to your convictions. Follow your dreams and passion. Do not do what the society demands of you, if you feel it is not inline with your convictions. 3. Be a team player You will not achieve much alone. Join hands and be a team player. For sure you will get somewhere alone, but if you are two or more you will get very far. Lonely ants never get far, mostly they are trampled on and they die. A group of ants reach their intended destination. If you are single, think of marrying. Generally couples do well than singles. If you are embarking on business, think of partnership or a company. For sure as sole proprietor you will enjoy profits lone, but as a company you have a chance of large pool of capital and ideas. Look at the richest men in the world. Bill Gates founded Microsoft with Paul Allen. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were students at Stanford. Apple computers were founded by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Always two or more are better than one. 4. Never turn back Perhaps you are experiencing a very discouraging moment in your life or you have hit a wall. It is not the time to turn back and give up. Either climb the wall, go around it but do not turn back. It is time to surmount the obstacle. Be an army ant. It is better to die trying to maneuver than to surrender to fate. 5. Give a helping hand If you are the strongest in the society, please offer some help to the weak. Your strength might be financial, special skill, academic achievement or just a talent. Use your ability to benefit the less advantaged. I normally say that ability is like manure, you either spread it or it will start to stink. Learn from soldier ants to offer help to the weak ants.

6. Play your part Now you feel very proud that I have suggested that the endowed should help the weak. I know you regard yourself as weak; therefore you should be looked after. Thats very good; however, you have to play your role. If you are a worker ant play your role. Refrain from blaming the soldiers for not doing their work when you are forfeiting your responsibility. 7. Leave your cocoon Leave your comfort zone. Do what inspires you. Do what you love to do. Go after your dreams. Army ants never stick in the comfort anthill when they realize things are not working anymore. They hit the road. They declare war. They move on. Ants leave the harbour of known to the unknown. They move with great determination such that they do not turn back. Ants have to find a better location by all means. 8. Do not let go until the problem is solved When you attack a problem, do not just go skin deep. Go to the roots. Eliminate it completely. Army ants, bite the intruder really painfully. Face that procrastination really seriously. Attack gossiping seriously. Quit that habit of laying blames. Ensure vices in your life are eliminated. Like ants, once you bite the problem, do not let go. It is better to die than to give up. Do whatever is possible to solve it. 9. Take small steps My brother always tells me that ants can eat a whole elephant. Sure enough, if ants find a carcass of an elephant, they can finish it. Although ants are very small they finish an elephant by many small bites. Similarly, attack that goal by accomplishing small steps at a time. Save 1k a month and you will have a big savings cumulatively.

Read one verse in a bible everyday, before long you will have read the whole bible. Do a good deed to another person each day. Touch a single heart a day. Smile to one of your `enemies every day. 10. Step by step Are you feeling as if your life is dragging? Do you feel as if it is taking forever to reach your goal? Do not panic provided you are making small steps to get you to the coveted destination. Remember army ants normally travel at a very low speed of about 20 meters an hour. This is a very slow speed, probably than that of your life but surprising enough, they get to the intended destination. Do not be discouraged by your speed of a tortoise, keep going, you are nearing the finishing line. We know you are supposed to be a millionaire by now. However, somehow, somehow you are not. Keep going, do what millionaires do, you will get there eventually. 11. After failing, get up and move on Eunice has reminded me of this important characteristic of ants. If you disrupt the column of ants, they remain disorganised for a very short time. Within no time; they make a line again and build a column and move on. This tells you not to remain in a mess forever. If you fall or make a mistake, shake off the dust, Learn the lesson, organise yourself and move on.

Taxonomy The classification of ants is as follows: Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Hymenoptera Family: Formicidae Genus: Approximately 290 known genera Species: Approximately 8800 known species Morphology Ants have three major body parts: head, thorax, and gastor (abdomen). The thorax can be broken down into two major parts: the alitrunk which contains the legs and wings, and the petiole which is found directly anterior to the gastor and is found only in ants. Ants have mandibles (jaws) which are of varied structures. These varied structures provide for a plethora of functions ranging from grasping, tearing, cutting and other special tasks. Most ants have a stinger at the end of the gastor. Some ants can release this stinger in a similar fashion to honeybees. The stinger is only found in female ants and is a modified ovipositor (egg laying organ). Ants have compound eyes which have not been shown to effect their behavior, although some ants seem to be able to detect movemen t. They have very sensitive antennae that are used for a wide array of communication. Nearly all ants have a unique gland found on the petiole called the metapleural gland. Most importantly, this gland has been shown to contain antibacterial and antifungal chemicals which are essential for survival in the humid, dark nests in the ground or rotting vegetation. This gland secretes an antiseptic substance that at times acts as a repellent to attacking organisms. It is also thought that the metapleural gland releases pheromones for communication.

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Origins The oldest fossil remains of modern ants is preserved in amber and has been dated by radioactive isotopes to be approximately 80 million years old. It has many of the characteristics of modern ants while also presenting many characteristics of the ant's distant relative, the nonsocial aculeate wasp. Like modern ants, the fossil contains the metapleural gland, petiole turning down towards the gastor, and a relatively small thorax without wings. The fossil contains the following wasp like characteristics: short mandibles with only two teeth, stinger that can be extruded, unconstricted gastor, and double tibial spurs. The fossil antennae have a short first segment and a long flexible segmented structure for the rest of the antennae. This antennae combines both wasp and ant features. An early Cretaceous fossil that may be an ant has been discovered. Unfortunately, the gastor has been folded back over the thorax, thereby restricting the view of the petiole. It is a less well preserved specimen, and, therefore, scientists are uncertain as to its' morphology. Why ants are so successful It appears that ants were the first, and remain the only, social insect predators to utilize the moist, dark dirt and rotting vegetation for nesting. Since ants shed their wings after mating, they can crawl into a much smaller space than their relatives, the wasp. The wasp has wings and a relatively large thorax which limits where it can nest. The ant retains some of the weapons of the wasp, i.e. the stinger and other chemical weapons, which make the ant a mean and efficient predator. One of the greatest advantages for ants is their social behavior. Working as a colony with specialized duties, they are more efficient than non-social insects in getting necessary jobs done. For example, when you have a number of individuals solely responsible for feeding larvae, there is a higher likelihood that the larvae will be fed by at least one individual. Other ants in the colony are responsible for bringing food to the feeders. Others are responsible for bringing food into the colony, etc. The feeders are specialized to complete their single task, and, therefore, do not have to succeed at a great number of tasks to get the food to the larvae. Their varied mandibles are an irreplaceable tool for accomplishing the jobs necessary for the multiple behaviors displayed by various individuals of colonies. The metapleural gland excretes antifungal and antibacterial materials that ants spread throughout their colonies through their wanderings. This protects their brood and their food supplies in the humid underground environment Mating Most all ants mate in one of two ways. The first is known as the male-aggregation syndrome. At a time usually triggered by environmental events such as a large rainfall, the males and unfertilized queens, which have been patiently waiting underground, suddenly take to the air and swarm in what is commonly called the nuptial flight. This swarming often appears as a column

of flying ants rising off the ground. The queen is usually inseminated in mid-air and then flies off to a locale where she breaks off her wings and begins to dig a hole either in the ground or in plant material, which will become her nest. She lays her eggs and remains with them until they hatch, living off of her own body reserves. Eventually they will hatch and become the first of her workers that will take care of her and the colony as it increases in size and numbers. The female-calling syndrome has queens aggregating at the surface of colonies and calling males to them via pheromones. There are many exceptions to this basic description of mating. For example, some females are inseminated on the ground and then fly off to find their nests. With another species, the males will be swarming close to the ground waiting for females to emerge from their colonies. When she appears, they surround her in a rolling, writhing ball of males until the newly inseminated female breaks out of the ball after about 20-30 seconds and flies away to find a nest site. Gene Flow It is often argued whether ants and other social insects are altruistic in their contribution to the colony rather than trying to reproduce and directly pass on their own genes to their offspring. Yes, they seem to be altruistic, in they are helping their sisters at their own expense without directly passing on their genes. No, they aren't altruistic, in that they are passing on their own genes by allowing the colony to survive and expand to new colonies. This type of natural selection is called Kin Selection. Genes are selected in nature according to their ability to contribute to the success of the species. If an altruistic gene helps a colony to survive, then that gene will be passed onto kin which will in turn have the altruistic gene that will help that colony survive. If the gene for altruism works against the success of the colony then the individuals with the gene will not be successful and the gene will be selected against. One possible explanation for kin selection arises from the fact that all workers are females. It turns out that the workers are more closely related to each other than they would be to their own offspring. This means that they are more successful in making more genetically similar individuals by helping the colony than by having their own offspring. Specifically, males arise from unfertilized eggs so they have only a half complement of genes, all from their mother. Female workers arise from fertilized eggs and therefore have a full complement of genes of which half come from their mother and half come from their father. Workers always get the exact same half of their gene complement from their father since he only has a half to begin with. Workers are, therefore, at least fifty percent related to each other since half of their genes always come from their father. Workers can end up with either half of their mother's genes which means that they will be on average 75 percent related to each other. If the workers did have the opportunity to reproduce, (which they don't), the best they can do is to contribute 50 percent of their genes to their offspring

Communication Ants need to be able to communicate for an array of reasons. The following is a list of the 12 major reasons for communication that researchers have identified (Holldobler and Wilson, p. 227). 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Alarm Simple attraction Recruitment, as to a new food source or nest site Grooming, including assistance at molting Trophallaxis (the exchange of oral and anal liquid) Exchange of solid food particles Group effect: either facilitating or inhibiting a given activity Recognition, of both nestmates and members of particular castes, including (broadly) discrimination of injured and dead individuals. 9. Caste determination, either by inhibition or by stimulation. 10. Control of competing reproductives 11. Territorial and home range signals and nest markers 12. Sexual communication, including species recognition, sex recognition, synchronization of sexual activity, and assessment during sexual competition.

The majority of communication seems to be chemical. Ants also tap each other, feel each other out with their antennae, straddle each other to give certain messages, and grasp and stroke each other as well. One gland, the pygidial gland on the gastor, is used to lay down trails for the same individual or for others to follow in the same track. It also seems to be used to warn colony members of danger and as a pheromone to attract fellow foragers to food sites. In fire ants, the Dufour's gland is the source of trail- laying chemicals. Some trail pheromones can last several days. In leaf cutter ants, they may create a main trunk trail leading away from the colony only to branch out in several directions a short distance later. They continue to branch out like arteries to capillaries until single ants are foraging for leaf material. When they obtain their leaf fragment, they turn around follow their pheromone trail back along the path to the main trunk and then the colony. return to top Division of Labor Ant colonies are grossly divided into queens, males, and workers. The job of the queen is to lay eggs. The males generally do nothing for the colony. They wander around accepting food from the workers until the time comes for mating. They die almost immediately after mating. Workers are generally sterile females. They have a variety of tasks to perform for the colony ranging from foragers, defenders, brood feeders, food preparers, caretakers of the queen and nest construction, among other things. The size of the ant in the colony is often different according to the task the ant needs to perform. The queen is often the largest; brood keepers are the smallest. Soldiers are

large, and foragers are smaller. When ants specialize, they help the colony survive in a number of ways. For example, foragers are constantly exposed to danger while out on the hunt. A small percentage of the colony acts as foragers though, so the majority of the colony is safely tucked away in the nest. The foragers are sacrificing for the majority of the colony, which means that the colony will probably survive longer. If every ant in the colony had to forage, then every individual would be exposed to great dangers. Interestingly, duties are often assigned according to the age of the ant. The younger ants are closer to the queen, taking care of her and the brood, while the older ants are usually delegated the more dangerous tasks of foraging and defense. Foraging The overriding goal of every foraging ant is to spend the least amount of energy to obtain and deliver the greatest food value to the colony. As long as enough foragers are successful, the colony can maintain the energy flow to continue reproducing indefinitely. One major deciding factor as to foraging technique takes into account the external dangers presented to ants while foraging. They are constantly under attack by predators and competitors. When an ant is lost to predation or injury, the whole colony loses a small energy packet. Predators may influence whether a colony hunts with packs of ants going off at a time or if the colony uses individuals to hunt on their own. Will they hunt out in the open or will they hide under some sort of canopy? If competition is a problem, ants may expend a larger amount of energy to retrieve a food source quickly, rather than to go slowly and allow other colonies to take the food. Temperature and humidity are two important environmental factors effecting foraging. Desert ants are adapted to higher temperatures and lower humidity, while cold weather species do better in higher humidity, cooler temperatures. Some ants forage before sunrise and after sunset when the temperatures are not too hot. Others forage only after sunrise and before sunset to take advantage of the warmer temperatures. Some ants may forage at unseemly times of the day to avoid predators. Foraging may be controlled by the time of availability of the food source. High humidity seems to present a higher temperature window as to when ants will forage. Most ants will not forage during or shortly after a rainfall. When foraging, ants seek a variety of materials depending on the needs of their colony. At different times, the colony may need protein or may need carbohydrates. Ants can be predators, omnivorous, seed specialists, or fungus gardeners. There are no known ants that actually eat leaves, but there are ants that use leaves for different purposes. return to top Symbiotic Relationships Relationships between ants and other organisms are numerous and varied.

Ant/Ant: Some species of ants are extreme in their dependence upon other ant species. For example, the ant Tuleutomyrmex schneidere spends almost its entire life riding on the backs of host ant species. They seem to contribute nothing to the hosts, but are tolerated and even fed. Slavemaker ants (Formica subintegra, for example) steal brood from other colonies and return the brood to develop and serve the Slavemaker colony. The slaves are absolutely dependent in that if they don't work, they don't get fed. Other ants work together as with the Crematogaster limata parabiotica and Monacis debilis. These ants have their nests close together and share the same foraging trails. Camponotus has also been seen giving food to the Monacis workers. Ant/Other Insect: These relationships are many and diverse, ranging from commensual to parasitic. Aphids and ants have many species relationships where both the ants and aphids benefit (mutualism). Aphids secrete honeydew and amino acids through their anus. The ants eat or store the honeydew. The ants sometimes incorporate the aphid territory into their own territory, which allows easier access to the aphids and affords the aphids protection by a greater number of ants. The honeydew sometimes contains chemicals that are purposely directed at attracting ants. The aphids sometimes release chemical signals that warn other aphids of a predatorial attack and also alert the ants so they can attack the invader. Ant/Plant: These relationships are also known to be abundant. Some carnivorous plants allow ants to hunt herbivores on them. In turn, the ant protects the plant from the herbivores eating their plant tissue. Many plants have extrafloral nectaries on various parts of the plant. These are nectar- producing structures not associated with flowers. The ants are attracted to the plant where they can obtain small amounts of sugar and, in turn, defend the plant from other insects. Ants provide this same service of eliminating herbivores to many plants. Other ants confiscate plant parts to grow fungus on in fungus gardens deep with colonies. These leaf cutter ants process the leaves and use the fungus grown upon the leaf material for food. Sometimes ants live in tree hollows and have no effect on the plant at all. Harvester ants do a great service to plants by collecting and transporting seeds. In one case, the ants eat a small part of the seed and leave the rest of the still- viable seed to germinate.