Who would have thought this possible? A small, almost insignificant insect that can outlive many common household pets.
Ants truly are amazing creatures. They exhibit many human behaviours and even appear to be lazy. They have developed an extremely complex social system with the queen ant at its centre. The ant colony consists of a queen, who has no authority over the other ants. In fact, the queen ant is the mother of all other ants in the colony. It also has worker ants who sustain the colony and provide nourishment for the queen and larvae. The other component of the ant society is the drone ant. The drones are males and serve only one purpose. Impregnating a queen ant.
A queen ants long life
While we have just seen how the woolly bear caterpillar can live for an astounding 14 years by freezing itself, and the periodical cicada can live an amazing 17 years, neither of these insects come close to the life span of a queen ant. In captivity, some queen ants have been observed to live for up to 28 years. That would make the life span of queen ants among the longest of all insects. She will survive and care for her colony for as long as the colony survives. When there is no more colony, there will be no more queen.
Considering that whole function of their existence is to reproduce, and the stresses of reproduction on the body, their amazing life span simply amazing.
