Fire ant queens. Even if only one queen survives, within a month or so, the colony can expand to thousands of individuals. Some colonies may be polygynous (having multiple queens per nest). Fire ants are resilient and can survive floods. During Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017, clumps of fire ants, known as rafts, were seen clumped together on the surface of the water. Each clump had as many as 100,000 individual ants, which formed a temporary structure until finding a new permanent home. Fire ant queens, the reproductive females in their colony, also are generally the largest. Their primary function is
Ant colony "formicary", which derives from the Medieval Latin word "formīcārium". The word also derives from "formica". "Ant nests" are the physical spaces in which the ants live. These can be underground, in trees, under rocks, or even inside a single acorn. The name "anthill" applies to underground nests where the workers pile sand or soil outside the entrance, forming a large mound. Colony size (the number of individuals that make up the colony) is very important to ants: it can affect how they forage, how they defend their nests, how they mate, and even their physical appearances. Body size is often