Short answers, pulled from the story.
The oldest known ant fossils date back to the mid-Cretaceous period, approximately 113 to 100 million years ago. Specimens like Sphecomyrma trapped in amber reveal features that bridge the gap between wasps and modern ants.
Queens can live for up to 30 years, surviving 100 times longer than solitary insects of similar size. Workers typically live from 1 to 3 years and males survive for only a few weeks.
The scientific name for the family of ants is Formicidae. This name derives from an ancient root meaning the biter, a descriptor that has defined the family for millions of years.
Ants communicate through a sophisticated language of pheromones, sounds, and touch to solve complex problems without a central command. A forager that finds food marks a trail on the soil surface, which is followed by other ants that reinforce the path when they return with food.
The smallest and largest workers in the species Carebara diversa show nearly a 500-fold difference in dry weights. This illustrates the extreme polymorphism possible within a single colony.
Ultraviolet vision was first discovered in ants by Sir John Lubbock in 1881. Studies on ants have since tested hypotheses in kin selection and evolutionarily stable strategies.