Queen ant

A queen ant is an adult or sometimes teenage, reproducing female ant in an ant colony; generally she will be the mother of all the other ants in that colony. Some female ants, such as Cataglyphis cursor, do not need to mate to produce babies, reproducing through asexual parthenogenesis or cloning, and all of those offspring will be female. Others, like those in the genus Crematogaster, undergo mating in a nuptial flight. Ant offspring develop from larvae specially fed in order to become sexually mature among most species. Depending on the species, there can be either a single mother queen, or potentially, hundreds of fertile queens in some species. Queen ants have one of the longest life-spans of any known insect – up to 30 years. A queen of Lasius niger was held in captivity by German entomologist Hermann Appel for 28¾ years; also a Pogonomyrmex owyheei has a maximum estimated longevity of 30 years in the field.