Distinguished by her large size and long lifespan—up to 15 years—the queen is a fascinating figure in the ant world. After a single mating flight, where she stores sperm for life, the queen ...

Ants range in size from the miniscule up to one inch long, and usually appear black, brown, red, or yellow. Ants look much like termites, and the two are often confused. Ants can be identified by ...

CHILD #1:How would an ant be born? ADAM:How would an ant be born? Well inside a colony there's a queen, she's a really big ant and she lays all the eggs that produce all of the ants in the colony.

This story appears in the June 2018 issue of National Geographic magazine. It’s good to be the queen—the ant queen, that is—because mating does wonders for her immune system. When exposure ...