AnAge entry for Formicidae

Classification (HAGRID: 00007)

Taxonomy: Kingdom: Animalia
    Phylum: Arthropoda (Taxon entry)
        Class: Insecta (Taxon entry)
            Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae (Browse taxon)
Common name: Ants
Find members of Formicidae: Find members of Formicidae

Observations: Ant castes, like workers and queens, are not only morphologically different but have distinct ageing phenotypes. Even though both are largely postmitotic, queens can live over 15 years, 100 times more than the workers. There are exceptional cases of worker ants living over 5 years, though. Workers show a clear acceleration of mortality whereas queens die very rapidly after their sperm stocks are exhausted, often assassinated by the workers. Therefore, queens may well feature negligible senescence [0002]. One Camponotus fellah queen set the record for ant longevity, living in an artificial nest for 26 years [1297].

[1245] Lucas et al. (2016), Higher expression of somatic repair genes in long-lived ant queens than workers (PubMed)
[1218] Roux et al. (2014), Patterns of positive selection in seven ant genomes (PubMed)
[1297] Vonshak and Shlagman (2009), A Camponotus fellah queen sets a record for Israeli ant longevity
[1211] Keller (1998), Queen lifespan and colony characteristics in ants and termites
[1212] Keller and Genoud (1997), Extraordinary lifespans in ants: a test of evolutionary theories of ageing
[0002] Caleb Finch (1990), Longevity, Senescence, and the Genome