ANIMAL COMMUNITIES AND SOCIAL LIFE 155 



they fall exhausted and dying in the performance of their 

 duties. The community, it is important to note, is a per- 

 sistent or continuous one. The workers do not live long, 

 the spring broods usually not over two or three months, 

 and the fall broods not more than six or eight months; 

 but new ones are hatching while the old ones are dying, 

 and the community as a whole always persists. The queen 

 may live several years, perhaps as many as five.* She lays 

 about one million eggs a year. 



85. The ants. There are many species of ants, two 

 thousand or more, and all of them live in communities and 

 show a truly communal life. There is much variety of 

 habit in the lives of different kinds of ants, and the degree 

 in which the communal or social life is specialized or elab- 

 orated varies much. But certain general conditions pre- 

 vail in the life of all the different kinds of individuals 



a 



FIG. 92. Female (a), male (6), and worker (c) of an ant (Camponotuf ep.). 



sexually developed males and females that possess wings, 

 and sexually undeveloped workers that are wingless (Fig. 

 92). In some kinds the workers show structural differ- 



* A queen bee has been kept alive for fifteen years. 



