View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does the stridulatory organ in an ant's anatomy do?

2. How long does it take a foreign ant to produce a new colony odor?

3. How much of the Amazon rainforest is composed of ants and other insects?

4. Which of the following physical attributes signifies a queen within a swarm of ants?

5. Where do sweat bees primarily burrow?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How do ant colonies treat foreign ants that wander in the nest?

3. How are ant colonies defined?

4. How do various ant species, as discussed in this novel, protect their nests from spiders?

5. Why is communication between ants important during transportation?

6. What are "sibling species?"

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

8. How does the caste system within a given ant colony change according to the demographic?

9. What realization did scientists make about the Myrmica ants ability to differentiate larvae from eggs?

10. What study was performed on fire ants leading to the understanding the foragers will respond to the nutritional needs of their colony?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

There is a long process involved with identifying ant species throughout the world. Explain the steps to proper identification of a new ant species. Explain why it is so difficult for scientists to identify new ant species. How many ant species are believed to be unidentified throughout the scientific world?

Essay Topic 2

The final chapter of the text is extremely informative in the process of collecting, preserving, and studying ant species. Describe the proper process for collecting ant species from the wild and transporting them back to the study lab. Explain the proper process for preserving ants for museum work. Finally, explain the proper process for transporting entire colonies from one nest to another.

Essay Topic 3

There are many ways that ants within a colony recognize one another and differentiate between friend and foe. Explain the most common ways ants recognize each other within a colony. Then explain to two main ways through which ants learn to recognize their colony. Finally, explain the controversy surrounding Jaffe and Sanchez's discovery of the gland that produces colony odor. How has this affected how scientists view kin recognition?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 892 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample