9 Six-Legged Workers

Can you imagine being able to lift fifty people at once and carry them? You'd have to have this kind of strength. Well, you may be surprised to know that tiny ants do. Ants must often carry food to their homes from places that are far away. To do this, they must be very strong.

Ants live in tunnels that twist and turn in many directions, like the roots of a gnarled old tree. Thousands of ants can live in one nest. The tunnels are divided into parts. Each part serves a special purpose.

The royal chamber is the place where the queen ant lays her eggs. The queen spends her whole life laying eggs. She never leaves her chamber, except to start a new nest. Worker ants must bring food to her.

The worker ants in an ant colony have many different jobs. Some workers pull the eggs from the royal chamber into a room called the “nursery.” There, they help larvae climb out of their shells. Larvae are the baby ants when they first come out of the eggs. In the nursery, there are workers who look after the larvae until they become full-grown ants. Some workers find food and store it in the granary, where seeds are kept. Others dump leftovers in the rubbish room. Ants have their own complete, busy world hidden in tunnels under our feet!

你能想象自己能一次举起五十个人并带着他们走吗？你得有这种力气才行。嗯，得知小小的蚂蚁就能做到，你可能会很惊讶。蚂蚁经常必须把食物从很远的地方搬回它们的家。要做到这一点，它们必须非常强壮。

蚂蚁生活在像一棵扭曲的老树的树根一样、向许多方向蜿蜒曲折的隧道里。一个蚁巢里可以生活成千上万只蚂蚁。这些隧道被分成不同的区域，每个区域都有特殊的用途。

王室房间是蚁后产卵的地方。蚁后一生都在产卵，除了去建立新蚁巢外，她从不离开自己的房间。工蚁必须给她带食物。

蚁群中的工蚁有许多不同的工作。一些工蚁把卵从王室房间搬到一个叫做“育婴室”的房间里。在那里，它们帮助幼虫从卵壳里爬出来。幼虫是刚从卵里出来时的幼蚁。在育婴室里，有工蚁照顾幼虫，直到它们长成成年蚂蚁。一些工蚁寻找食物并把食物储存在粮仓里，粮仓是储存种子的地方。另一些工蚁则把剩饭剩菜倒在垃圾房里。蚂蚁在我们脚下的隧道里有着自己完整、忙碌的世界！