Carpenter ant standard size of carpenter ant colonies elsewhere. When workers find food sources, they communicate this information to the rest of the nest. They use biochemical pheromones to mark the shortest path that can be taken from the nest to the source. When a sizable number of workers follows this trail, the strength of the cue increases and a foraging trail is established. This ends when the food source is depleted. The workers will then feed the queen and the larvae by consuming the food they have found, and regurgitating the food at the nest. Foraging trails can either be under
The Ant and the Grasshopper 166 in the Perry Index. It relates that the ant was once a man who was always busy farming. Not satisfied with the results of his own labour, he plundered his neighbours' crops at night. This angered the king of the gods, who turned him into what is now an ant. Yet even though the man had changed his shape, he did not change his habits and to this day goes around the fields gathering the fruits of other people's labour, storing them up for himself. The moral given the fable in old Greek sources was that it is easier