Nutrition

How does it get its food?
Eciton hamatum is a foraging/raiding insect, which uses vast numbers of insects from the colony to swarm prey.  E. hamatum uses a column raiding style which means that foraging workers leave the bivouac, where they live, in a three main columns that specialize in seeking out other insect colonies up to 350 meters away. Another way that ants meet their nutritional requirements is from other ants in the colony that have already fed, this is called trophallaxis. Hungry ants will beg or lightly tap on the head of another ant to “ask” for food. This will trigger the fed ant to regurgitate some its own food from its stomach to feed the hungry ant. Check out a video of some army ants in action foraging the forest for food on Animal Plant here.

What does it eat?
Army ants are carnivorous preying upon many different types of animals including members of the Mollusca, Annelida,Arachnida, Crustacea, Chilopoda, Diplopoda, Insecta, and members of multiple other phylums. However, the group of organisms that the insects feed on depends on the area in which the ants reside. The ant species E. hamatum targets in the immature stage of wasps and nonecitonine ants but occasionally attacks adults as well. These ants also target treehoppers and multiple other social wasp species. Army ants are very opportunistic and will take other organisms as well if the opportunity arises since they are foragers. Their main diet is mostly due to the animals available to consumption in their area of foraging. 
 
Digestive System
When the food that the ant eats is taken in it gets passed through to the food pouch in the abdomen, the most rear portion of the ant. From here the food moves from the crop to the actual stomach to be digested and the nutrients absorbed into its circulatory system, the waste is then excreted out the rectum. Click here to see a diagram of the inside of the ant.
 
Circulatory System
The circulatory system in ants pumps the haemolymph using a dorsal vessel to flow from the head to the back of the insect. The haemolymph delivers nutrients and takes up waste products to be excreted. After, the haemolymph flows back to the head and is emptied out into vessel near the brain where the process starts again.
 
Circulatory Fluid
Ants’ circulatory system is responsible for the distribution of nutrients throughout the ant’s body. Unlike most mammals’ circulatory system, an ant’s circulatory system is not responsible for transporting oxygen throughout the body only nutrients, hormones, and cellular components involved with immune responses. For this reason the fluid in the circulatory system is not referred to as blood but rather haemolymph. The ants, as well as many other insects, feed mostly on the hemolymph from captured prey items.
 
Respiratory System
Ants respire by letting air into their bodies through openings on the outside of body called spiracles. These spiracles, that let air through the exoskeleton, are connected to tracheal tubes that run throughout the body of the insect and provide the body with oxygen.

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