var arrayFacts=[ "Long Live the Queen!

The life-span of ants vary from caste to caste and species to species. Some workers might live only a few weeks, while other workers can live for years.

The lucky queen of a Lasius Niger ant colony can live for up to 15 years or more. All hail the Queen!", "A rolling ant-ball gathers no moss.

The Army ants of South America have no nest at all. What they do have are giant colonies of very large, aggressive ants.

Every night they pick up everything and everyone and move by forming a large ball of ants. The queen and larvae are hiding, safe inside the ball of killer ants.", "Wandering Ants:

African driver ants live in colonies, but their nests are temporary.

After the queen ant lays eggs, the colony carries the grubs to the next nest.", "Mega-Ant:

An American leaf-cutting ant can carry a leaf more than twice its own weight.

The leaf pieces are carried back to the nest, cut into smaller pieces, and used to grow fungus for the ants to eat.", "Colonies Large and Small:

Ant colonies can contain as few as fifty ants or more than 306,000,000.", "Variety is the Spice of Life:

There are 12,000 ant species on the planet.", "Nanny Ants:

Ant nests have nurses and nurseries for their off-spring. Underground chambers provide safety for the soft, legless larvae that will mature to adult ants.

The queen takes care of the helpless larvae when the colony is new, but later on worker ants (nurses) will wash and feed the larvae, even moving them to a safer spot if disturbed.", "A Scented Letter:

Ants actually have a real 'vocabulary.' They can signal where food sources are located, warn other ants of danger, and even lead them to a new nest - all by emitting or following chemical trails using their sense of smell.

Scientists believe ants produce between 10 to 20 of these chemicals, and use their antennae to follow the chemical trails.", "Social Butterflies... I Mean, Ants:

Ants are closely related to bees and wasps. They are all included in the Hymenoptera group of insects, which includes famous complex social systems in which members are divided into worker, drone, and queen castes.

Still, many of these insects live solitary lives, meeting only to mate.", "A Fungus Among Us:

Ants are farmers, too! South America’s leaf cutter ants keep 'gardens' in their nests.

They chew up leaves from plants and trees, which they then leave in the nest’s 'garden.'

Over time, a delicious (to them) fungus grows on the chewed-up leaves. Supper’s ready!", "Intellige-Ant:

Some ants build nests that are enormous compared to their individual size.

But the thing is - the ants don’t have cranes, scaffolding, tools, levels, or labor unions!

Using no equipment other than their hands and mouths, the tiny ant builds a shelter in which to live, eat, store food, and rear baby ants. Pretty clever.", "Ants as snacks?

Ants are eaten in a number of countries. Going to a movie in Columbia? Forget the popcorn and pick up a bag of fried or roasted ants.

Visiting Australia? You might try a treat made from the honey ant. Or... you might not.", "ANTennae:

Ants have a ball and socket joint (like a human’s arm-shoulder joint) at the base of their antennae.

This gives ants the ability to move their antennae in all directions.", "Ants in their pants - or feathers?

Certain birds put common black ants and wood ants in their feathers - on purpose! These insects don’t sting or bite, but do squirt formic acid as a form of self-defense.

The reason: the formic acid that the ants produce kills parasites that live on the birds’ feathers.", "Ants keep slave ants!

It’s true. The red (Amazon) ants that live in the western United States steal larvae of other ants.

Once these 'slave' larvae are mature, they are used by the red ants to build their homes and even as food, since they can’t do anything but fight.

Without their slaves, the red ants would starve!", "Ants have a sweet tooth, too!

Some ants capture and keep certain caterpillars, particularly those of the large blue butterfly, in their nest.

Why? The caterpillars produce a sweet honeydew that the ants love. In return, the caterpillars feed on the tiny ant larvae.", "Who Knew?

Ants sometimes protect aphids, also known as 'plant lice,' by building shelters to keep them dry when it rains.

Ants do so because they feed on the honeydew (a sweet liquid) that aphids excrete.", "Touchy Feely:

Ants touch each other a lot. They do so to detect the smell of their nest on each other.", "The Metamorphosis:

Ants undergo a complete metamorphosis, making them one of the most advanced insects.

Going through a complete metamorphosis means that ants hatch from eggs to become larvae (very different from adult form), molt several times, and produce a chrysalis.

Inside the chrysalis, the ant’s body adopts its adult form.", "All Shapes and Sizes:

Ants, ants, big and small, short and tall - they’re everywhere! There are nearly 8,800 species of ants identified in the world today.

The largest ants are the driver ants (Africa),which have workers that can be one and a half inches long!

The smallest ant is from Sri Lanka, and has workers that are only 1/30th of an inch.", "Are you stronger than an ant?

No way! A Weaver ant can carry a load more that 1,000 times their own weight.

That means if you were a 175 pound weight lifter, you could lift almost 9,000 pounds!", "Cry Baby:

Some ant larvae can emit a sound like a crying baby by rubbing together ridges at the bottom of their jaws.", "The Right Jaw for the Job:

Many ant species have uniquely shaped jaws, depending on the type of food they eat.

For example, some species have simple jaws for eating honeydew, while other species have crushing jaws without teeth to eat grass seeds.", "Who Needs a Flash Light?

Fire ants don’t get lost, not even in the dark. Researchers think the ants have an internal 'compass' that keeps them from getting lost - after all, it’s not like they have street signs and city maps to help them navigate.

But that’s not all - they navigate just fine in the dark, too. Scientists do not know exactly how this is possible, but they think a mineral called magnetite may enable them to orient themselves without light.", "Once in a Lifetime:

For many ant species, a queen mates with a male only once in her life.

The queen ant stores and uses the sperm for the rest of her days.", "Her Children are Her Life:

For many ant species, the queen ant bites off her wings after she mates.

Sterile female ants will build her nest, feed her, and take care of the young, so she has no need to travel.", "How many ants?

At any given moment, scientists estimate there are 1,000,000,000,000,000 (1 x 1015) individual ants alive on earth.

Although each ant only weighs a small fraction of an ounce, their combined weight exceeds the combined weight of all humans on earth (by a significant margin).", "Conveyer Belt:

If an American leaf-cutting ant drops the leaf piece it is carrying, other ants rush over to help.

Long lines of these ants, carrying their leaves and flowers, can be seen easily during the day.", "Off With Her Head!

It’s not always good to be queen--sometimes it kills. The queen ant’s job is to lay eggs - possibly up to 1500 a day.

When the queen is no longer able to produce eggs, the workers will kill her and find a new queen to replace her. Talk about pressure.", "Small, But Deadly:

Killer ants are real, and they’ve been described as the fiercest predators on Earth.

The term 'Killer ants' refers to several species of ant that are predatory and attack as an enormous group. These ants can kill animals much larger than themselves, especially if the animal is newborn, sick, weak, or wounded.", "Girl Power!

Many female ants are able to sting. When their nests is disturbed, ants defend their homes and move the young (eggs and pupae) to safety.", "ServANTS:

Some ant species force other ants to be their slaves.

These species will enter a different species' nest, kill the queen, and trick the worker ants into caring for their new larvae.", "Who Needs Tupperware?

Some ant species have workers who serve only as 'repletes' who store food for months or years in their swollen abdomens.

The repletes hang from the ceiling of the nest and regurgitate food to other ants in the colony.", "Social Butterflies... I Mean, Ants:

Some ant species live in colonies of as many as 100,000 individuals.

These species are known as 'social' insects, meaning that they live and work together in a colony.", "Water In, Water Out:

Some ants save their nests from flooding by urinating! Malaysian bamboo nesting ants (Cataulacus muticus) drink as much water as they can when rain begins to fill their nest.

Then, they hurry outside and relieve themselves. This is the only ant in the world known to do such a thing - but it works!", "Taylor Ants:

Some ants 'sew' leaves together to make ball-shaped nests.

The 'thread' they use is silk produced by a larva’s salivary glands.", "The ants go marching one by one...

Soldier ants have strong legs and can run very fast. As a matter of fact, if an ant were a human being, they would run as fast as a horse can gallop!

Army ants march single file, helping each other carry food. They can carry objects that weigh twenty times more than each individual.", "No Male Roll model:

Male ants develop from unfertilized eggs.", "German Citizen:

The first insect to be protected by law was the European wood ant, in West Germany in 1880.

These ants are important insect predators.", "Strength in Numbers:

The largest ant colony found so far contained 306 million worker ants and 1 million queens.

The colony covered 1.7 square miles (2.7 square kilometers) and was located on the Ishikari Coast of Hokkaido. There were 45,000 interconnected nests!", "World of Ants:

There are an amazing estimated over 100,000 species of ants.

These are just known species, new species are discovered every year!", "Think ants don’t weight much?

Don’t bet on it! The total weight of the world’s ants is more than the total weight of the world’s people.", "You Think Your Aunt Is Bad...

The two most dangerous killer ants are the army ants and the driver ants.

Driver ants can kill unexpectedly large animals, even a cow that’s been tied down, devouring everything but the bones in a few weeks. ", "That's Gratitude For You...

Velvet ants lay their eggs in burrows of solitary bees and wasps. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat their hosts' young.", "Sympathy For The Devil:

Fire ants have become such a problem for farms in the US that scientists there have imported a fly to fight the invasion.

The phorid fly (from South America) lands on the ants, laying their eggs under the ants' 'skin.'

When the flies’ larvae hatch, they give off an enzyme that removes the ants' heads!

The larvae goes on to grow to maturity inside the decapitated ants' heads... Almost makes you feel sorry for the ant.", "Salt In the Wound:

When some ant species bite, they squirt out formic acid from their abdomens.

This greatly increases the pain felt by whatever the ant is biting.", "Dracula Ant:

Found in Madagascar in 2000, dracula ants will head off to the colony nursery when hungry. They cut holes in their own larvae, and feed on the hemolymph. - that’s the equivalent of insect blood.

'They chew them until they bleed,' said Brian Fisher of the California Academy of Sciences, USA.. 'We call this nondestructive cannibalism.' I guess the ants call it supper.", "Strange Addiction:

Fire ants are invading outdoor electrical devices, airport runway lights and control boxes. They seem to have a weakness for anything that gives off electricity.

The ants will gather in masses inside the devices, interfering with current flow and damaging circuitry.

The behavior is made stranger by the fact that the fire ants stop searching for food and water. Large numbers of ants will starve, clogging up the equipment.", "An Ant with an Eye for Craftsmanship:

Like a spider, the tailor ant secretes a silken thread, which they use for sewing leaves together to form a shell.

After attaching the leaves to a branch, they finish building their tree house, complete with partitions and chambers.

If the leaves tear apart, the ants will pull back the edges while the workers bite tiny holes into the leaves through which they will pass the silk threads, lacing the edges back together.", "Crazy Ant Eats Christmas Crab:

The crazy ant was introduced to Australia when traders came to Christmas Island in the 1900s.

Scientists began to notice that something was wrong during a study of the red crab's nesting behavior. When the scientists dug around the crab nests, they discovered the burrows were swarming with crazy ants!

Since 1998, it is estimated that more than 2.5 million red crabs have been slaughtered by the ant.

Scientists are trying find a way to protect the red crab without destroying the crazy ant, which is essential to the forest ecosystem.", "Attack Ants:

Australia's bulldog ants are considered one of the fiercest ant species around.

These ants can leap a foot off the ground to attack you, and thirty of their stings can kill a man.

Bulldog ant guards will even sacrifice themselves to defend the colony.", "ServANTS

Amazon ants ransack other ant nests, kidnap the pupae, and then wait for them to turn into adults.

When mature, these ants will be slaves that accept the new colony as their own. They will spend their entire lives working for their slave masters.

Amazon ants need slaves to find food and feed them since their sharp, hooked jaws are great for fighting, but useless for taking care of themselves or their own larvae.", "The Secret Ingredient:

The leaf-cutter ant is the main ingredient of a favorite hot sauce in Venezuela.", "InsomniANT:

Ants never sleep.", "Long Live the Queen!

Ants can live for up to 16 years.", "Ant Lion Moonwalk:

The ant lion, sometimes known as the doodle-bug, is the sole animal in the world that can only walk backward.

Ant lions are small insects that usually live on dry, sandy soil. They dig holes in the soil to trap other insects for food - and they do so by walking around backward.

Ant lions cannot walk forward, but then again, they have no need to.", "Lucky Continent...

Ants are found on every continent in the world except Antarctica.", "Temper, Temper...

Some varieties of soldier ants are designed to explode when threatened. These ants make themselves burst to defend their colony from other invading insects.

When they explode, they spray a sticky chemical that kills the enemy or glues their opponent in place.", "Move Over, Tarzan:

Found in tropical forests all over the world, army ants are considered 'lords of the jungle.' Advancing in groups of up to 100,000, these blind and carnivorous ants will kill everything in their path.

Their powerful mandibles can reduce a tethered horse to bones in a matter of a few hours.

Because the ants are constantly traveling, they build temporary nests, called bivouacs, by fastening onto each other using their mandibles to form walls." ];