Queen ant reproducing ants or "flying ants" will leave their parent nest and take flight. The mating flights occur simultaneously in all ant nests of the particular species. The female "queen" ants will fly a long distance, during which they will mate with at least one winged male from another nest. He transfers sperm to the seminal receptacle of the queen and then dies. Once mated, the "queen" will attempt to find a suitable area to start a colony and, once found will detach her wings. The term "queen" is not particularly apt, as the queen ant has very little control over
Longhorn crazy ant research station Biosphere 2 in the Arizona Desert, no particular ant species was dominant. By 1996, the longhorn crazy ant had virtually replaced all the other ant species. It fed almost exclusively on the honeydew secreted by the large numbers of scale insects and mealybugs present, and other invertebrates were greatly diminished. The ones that remained were either well armoured, such as millipedes and woodlice, or were tiny and lived underground, such as springtails and mites. The inquiline wingless ant cricket ("Myrmecophilus americanus") is often found living in the nest of the longhorn crazy ant and is kleptoparasitic on it,