On average how long do ants live in their lifespan?
There is no specific answer to this question since it depends on very many factors. When these creatures have invaded your home and you are there thinking how long will these ants live in my house before they finally die and therefore you get rid of them naturally? Well below are some of the factors that determine how long an ant will live.
The location of the ants
Their location where they live determines how long their lifespan will be. Whether it’s in a colony, jar plastic bag, tube or forest. The location where they are naturally adapted to thrive affects their daily routines and lifestyle. For example, you will find that while outside in a forest, where they have established a colony on a hill undisturbed, they will tend to live their whole natural lives fully as compared to when they reside inside a house where they are many distractions.
The Ant Species
Different ant species have different longevity spans. For the black garden ants, the males will take around two months to mature fully and will thereafter die after mating with the female. Their females will take up to 2 years to live, while the queen will live up to 30 years.
For carpenter ants, on the other hand, it will take them 3 months to mature for the male but this will depend on the weathers season and die soon after mating. The females/workers will live up to 7 years while their queen lives up to 10 years.
Odorous ants will take about 9 weeks to mature for the male. The female odorous ants, as well as their queen, will talk about 1 year to live.
Other species like bullet ants, fire ants, soldier ants, sugar ants, bearded, British, brown, desert, driver, flying, pharaoh, red, velvet, wood, cow, grease, pavement, panda, chimera, worker, yellow, zombie, winged, trap-jaw, western harvester and many more will take more or less the same amount of time live and also depending on their nature of lifestyle and the surrounding.
Availability of food and water
Just like human beings, the survival of ants is greatly affected by food and water intake. Quality food and water will ensure they live long enough to their maturity while without food and water they will not survive. Air or oxygen for breathing is also very necessary for them to live.
Caste colony
This is the role that an ant plays in a colony. Naturally, it comes biologically. For the male, they will live for a few days to a few months and thereafter die immediately after mating with the queen. The queens, on the other hand, tend to outlive the others by many decades. Their role is majorly the laying of eggs and mating with the male. The worker ants are the female non-reproducing ants of the colony and these will live for several weeks up to a couple of years.
Another factor that can determine how long ants live is the availability of their queen. This is very important since she is the one that lays the eggs and also provides the food, in cases when a male dies after mating with her then the male is eaten. As the point of authority once she dies then the colony will not survive for long.
So once you have known how long they will live in your house it’s now time to know when and how to get rid of them. There are several ways to do so and I have highlighted them in my previous articles.
