The unseen world

Soldier ants, sometimes called major workers, are ants that come in different shapes but share one common trait: size. Each soldier ant is usually double the size of a worker. They have increased strength and durability, allowing them to use their larger mandibles to fight and protect against other ant colonies as well as predators. They will kill vertebrates and invertebrates, protecting the kill and moving it back to the colony. They are the defense and hunters of the colony. Their presence helps maintain order within the colony by responding quickly to threats and disturbances.The world is quite large and ever‑expanding, and from sand to muck you will always find ants. Class Insecta, order Hymenoptera, family Formicidae  there is one main family and over twenty‑one subfamilies, with more than twelve thousand individual species. Ants have a class system arranged into two groups: the royal class and the worker class. Within these classes are the queens, soldiers, and workers. Each has a different purpose, and each species has its own way of fulfilling that purpose. Because of this structure, ant societies remain incredibly organized and efficient no matter where they are found.

Yet they are not the main volume of the colony; this belongs to the worker class, which makes up seventy to ninety percent of the colony. They have five different types of workers, which include foragers, nurses, repletes, and builders. The foragers are the ants that go out and collect resources outside the nest and bring them back to the colony. Then you have the nurse workers, who take care of the brood eggs, larvae, and pupae making sure they are healthy and ready to work for the colony. Next is the less common replete, an ant capable of storing food in its body for times when resources are scarce. Last but not least are the builder ants, which construct ant hills and tunnel systems. Each of these worker types plays a vital role in keeping the colony functioning smoothly. Without this division of labor, the colony would not be able to survive or grow. They are the key to the colony’s success.

The lifeblood of the colony, queens don’t start as queens; there are three types: claustral, semi‑claustral, and hybrid‑producing queens. Claustral queens are solitary representatives that live and reproduce entirely with males; they mate in their nest and then remain there to lay their eggs. This is common in carpenter ants and certain harvester ants. Semi‑claustral queens mate outside the nest with males but still remain in the nest to lay eggs. This is a transitional reproductive mode between solitary and fully claustral queens. They may leave the nest briefly to mate but return to continue colony reproduction. Hybrid‑producing queens, such as those of the Iberian harvester ant (Messor ibericus), have a rare reproductive mode called xenoparous. In this process, queens produce offspring of two different species of their own and a related species by mating with males of the other species. This results in hybrid workers and queens, marking the first known case of a single queen species producing offspring of two different species.

Ants are quite the complex animals individually on their own they are quite simple but with colony and its many moving parts they are the most cooperative 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLBDVXLiWxQ 

https://canada-ant-colony.com/blogs/articles/ant-jobs-division-of-labour