The AntsCanada Ant Forum's

Recently I caught my first ever two Queen ants, both the same species, and I've been observing their behaviour since I've had them and how they react differently to certain situations. This made me wonder if it were possible for each individual Queen ant to have a different personality? One of my queens is very "laid back", she doesn't react at all when I expose her to light to check up on how she is doing and stays relatively calm when I move her enclosure around, and she is the first queen to start laying eggs. The second Queen on the other hand is much more skittish and reacts much more to movement and light so I don't really bother her as much, and she has not laid any eggs yet. The first queen also seems a lot more curious than the second, I actually caught her putting her antenna through the little air holes in her enclosure to sniff around outside which I thought was pretty cute Any thoughts on this?

Well they are animals which have a social intelligence, problem solving skills, communication methods, a hierarchy, a democracy etc. So I fully expect them to have different personalities as well, since that would actually be beneficial to their colony.

An ant with higher tolerance for stress levels/perceived risk for instance, would more than likely venture out further from the nest to scavenge and thus provide sustenance a more timid ant wouldn't reach. Now taking more risk can be rewarding of course, but also risky. The ant may die trying. In that case the colony would still have more than enough timid ants to cover the losses until a more courageous ant ventures out again.