Ant stereotyping

[FormidableFormicid]

Ants often get branded for being remarkably industrious and efficient. Does this stereotype hold true? I have only recently begun to be interested in ants so my ant related experiences are minimal. Could any ant experts help me out with stories on how your ant colonies have broken these stereotypes?

[antnest8]

Plenty, most queens sit and lay around all day for months same with the starting workers. This is still mostly to consrve energy so i guess it stays in the efficincy sterotype. The best possible evidence to break the sterotype is the circle of death ( not AntChucks ) some ants have been known to walk in circles following their own pherimone trails. The large one hold thousands of ants that walk for days. They continue until they die, the very thing that makes them efficiant kills them. This also is shown when fire ants get into electronics. When an ant "fries" from the electricity they release a "danger" pheramone. The other ants smell this and charge to war against the wires until it kills of almost the entire colony. This Phenomina has cause several thousands if dollers in electrical damages in the usa south.

Pardon my spelling.

[Glowbug1236]

I think that people must mistake efficiency for inevitability... an ant will walk right past a great score of food, i see it often, only for another ant to come along some time after, taste it, and run back to notify those awaiting such info.
This is not perfect efficiency, but a sort of "inevitable efficiency", driven by the ants tendency to constantly search, multiplied by the number of ants constantly searching.
They miss countless opportunities, yet other factors of their nature tend bring them success!

Also in my ant colony environment, there were no predators, until some invaders ate through the top and were eating the food and killing some of my ants. It took a tole on the numbers, but as far as i can tell, their numbers have returned.
And yet they seem more cautious, never sending out as many to collect the food that has been spotted. Also there are always majors at every entrance to the colony now, this was not the case before.
True efficiency would be to adjust to the threat when it's there, and change back when not. For a while now they seem to be on lock down mode, collecting less food as a result.
I could be off on this idea, just my thoughts.

Hey about those fire ants.. crazy about the electronics! People poison fire ants down here, when they could simply plug in an old dvd player and set it on...