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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What type of hierarchy does Wilson use to describe an ant colony?
(a) Subliminal hierarchy.
(b) Dense hierarchy.
(c) Veiled hierarchy.
(d) Functional hierarchy.

2. How many life cycle stages do all ant colonies go through?
(a) Three.
(b) Four.
(c) Two.
(d) Five.

3. How many ants are contained in each hectare of soil in the Amazonian rainforest?
(a) 18 million.
(b) 80 million.
(c) 800,000.
(d) 8 million.

4. Which of the following groups within an ant colony produces the strongest identification odor?
(a) Larvae ants.
(b) Worker ants.
(c) Queen ants.
(d) Sexually mature ants.

5. Which of the following is NOT a ways Wilson describes foreign ants being treated?
(a) They are pestered with constant nipping and leg pulling.
(b) They are killed.
(c) They are accepted, but withheld food.
(d) They are forced to lock mandibles in a dual.

Short Answer Questions

1. What species of ant carries large quantities of freshly cut vegetation into underground nests as deep as six meters?

2. Who coined the term "social insects"?

3. Which of the following is NOT a caste within ant colonies?

4. Of all the landscapes explored in the opening of this novel, which landscape has the highest density of ants per hectare?

5. What is the smallest collection of ants that can still be considered a colony?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Wilson think vertebrate animals are heavily favored in science books?

2. Why are caste systems often used within ant colonies?

3. What malleable criteria were used to decide that ant colonies were units rather than large groups of individuals?

4. What is the most common form of communication between ants, and how is it expressed?

5. How do male ants function within the colony caste system?

6. What happens during the reproductive stage of an ant colony?

7. What controversy surrounds the ant fossil discovered in the Victoria, Australia by Jell and Duncan in 1986?

8. Why are male ants typically neglected in taxonomic studies?

9. What are the most common ways through with an ant colony becomes polygynus?

10. What is acoustic communication? How is it achieved within an ant community?

(see the answer keys)

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