Every living species needs food to sustain itself. Even the smallest creature cannot live without food. Ants are little creepy crawlers that cause huge trouble if they enter the house. They have a keen sense of smell to detect food and find a way to grab it. An ant infestation is troublesome and there are ways to control and eliminate it. But the reason they infest the house is because they find food there. Let us look at the way ants find their food.
Ants use chemosense to detect food like sugar and sweets. The chemical substances present in their environment can be easily detected by them. Ants have olfactory receptors in the form of small bristles on their body. They get attracted to the food by recognizing and detecting the location of chemicals. They use olfactory cues that take them in a random search for food. Some ants have small antennal lobes whereas some have large, which gives them the ability to smell various odors. The sense of smell is in direct proportion to the size of lobes.
When they pick up a crumb, they move back to their nests while leaving a path with pheromones along the way so they can find their way back to the food source. Ants communicate with other ants in the colony using pheromones which help them keep track of food and also direct each other within their environment.
They move around the way and spread more pheromones to guide the other ants. As the smell of the scent grows, it becomes easy for other colony-mates to follow the way and bring the food back into the nest.
Ants are tough to get rid of. Once they enter, they do not leave easily. Do not let any attractant like sugar or bread lie on the floor for ants to feast on.
Thus, to stop the ants from feeding in your house, it is very important to maintain cleanliness. A small bit of crumb can cause your house to face an infestation. In case you need more learning on how to keep ants out of your home, read our article’ here.
