Banded sugar ant colony can be long-lived, with queens living for seven years or more. The black carpenter ant ("Camponotus pennsylvanicus") is known to adopt larvae and pupae from banded sugar ant colonies. Workers that belong to different matrilines (female ancestry) appear significantly different from each other in size. Matrilines are also said to influence caste determination within the species. The banded sugar ant is considered a household pest and is occasionally seen in houses at night, capable of damaging furniture and fittings by chewing the wood; carbon disulphide is used to treat and remove a banded sugar ant nest. These ants do
The Ant and the Grasshopper Dan" (1963), makes an argument for poetry over fanatical hard work. Ciardi's ant, John J. Plenty, is so bent upon saving that he eats very little of what he has saved. Meanwhile, Fiddler Dan the grasshopper and his non-conforming ant wife survive the winter without help and resume playing music with the return of spring. John Updike's 1987 short story "Brother Grasshopper" deals with a pair of brothers-in-law whose lives parallel the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. One, Fred Barrow, lives a conservative, restrained existence; the other, Carlyle Lothrop, spends his money profligately, especially on joint vacations for