Honeypot ant!!!
Honeypot ants, also called honey ants or repletes, are ants which are gorged with food by workers, to the point that their abdomens swell enormously, a condition called plerergate. Other ants then extract nourishment from them.
Honey ants are one of the most unusual of the more than 10,000 known ant species. Unlike bees, which store honey in honeycombs, honey ants store nectar inside the living bodies of worker ants called repletes. The ant colony draws upon these living “honey pots” during lean times.
To deposit or withdraw food, an ant will use its antennas to tap the right code on the antennas of a replete. The replete then opens its mouth to unlock the “honey pot.” A special stomach valve, composed of four flaps, controls the flow in or out. Over a lifetime of several months, a replete can apparently be drained and refilled several times.
Repletes normally live a sedentary but safe existence underground, where they are protected from drought, heat, and insect predators. In this dark subterranean world, they guard against bacteria and fungi by smearing their bodies with antibiotic fluid from a special gland.
Where does the “honey” come from? The food chain, as it were, begins with the sap and nectar of acacia trees. Next, tiny insects called aphids feed on these natural juices. Worker ants then milk the aphids of some of their excess sugar, which is called honeydew, or they collect nectar directly from the trees. Finally, the workers feed this collected liquid to the repletes. Of course, since the inactive repletes have modest nutritional needs, most of the honeydew ends up in the “honey bank”!
But what about the aphids? Are they the losers here? Not at all. For one thing, the ants leave them adequate nectar. For another, the ants protect the aphids from parasites and predators. Yes, both ants and aphids are winners in this symbiotic partnership called mutualism.
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