It happens due to the cooperative behavior among them all ants.
Most likely light, space,heat or moisture related though. they can huddle like that for months and be okay if that makes you feel any less anxious.
YES, THEY DO - but not in the sense we understand sleep. Research conducted by James and Cottell into sleep patterns of insects (1983) showed that ants have a cyclical pattern of resting periods which each nest as a group observes, lasting around eight minutes in any 12-hour period.
Observing colonies of ants maintained in the lab, Charbonneau found that an average of 40 percent of individuals are mostly inactive, with some variation between seasons, colonies and species.
Pheromones secreted by the leader of the ants is followed by all the ants moving in the given direction. The ants detect the pheromones using their antennae. This is why ants tend to follow a straight line while moving.
Ants transport their dead there in order to protect themselves and their queen from contamination. This behavior has to do with the way ants communicate with each other via chemicals.
Ant colonies have specialised undertakers for the task. They usually carry their dead to a sort of graveyard or take them to a dedicated tomb within the nest. Some ants bury their dead. This strategy is also adopted by termites forming a new colony when they can't afford the luxury of corpse carriers.
Though it's hard for humans to comprehend, ants don't recognize “death” as we know it. They simply respond to the oleic acid smell. They don't have any concept of afterlives, grief, or so on.
The average lifespan of an ant can be anywhere from a few weeks to 15 years. That depends on the species, the role the ant plays and the availability of food sources. For instance, a black garden ant can live almost two decades, while fire ant workers are expected to live less than a month.
Two of the best ways to eliminate ants are Borax and diatomaceous earth. Essential oils, including peppermint and clove, are a natural way to repel and kill ants. Food and moisture attract ants, so keep your home clean and dry to get rid of ants permanently.
People don't do anywhere as well as caterpillars in communicating with ants. Shouting at an ant is a bit like shouting at a computer or a cat. You may not see any sign that you've been heard.
In general, ants tend to live in dark spaces, meaning they need to adapt to such surroundings. Aside from living in the wood, carpenter ants do most of their foraging at night; therefore, the species evolved to have larger eyes with wide photoreceptors, allowing for tremendous night vision.
To make matters worse, the ants are more active at night than in the daytime and some colonies go dormant during the winter. (The colony is most active during the spring and summer.)
Why do ants walk in queues? As worker ants leave the nest to find food, they leave behind a chemical trail called pheromones. The ants walk in a straight line because they follow the scent the leader left behind.
Ants are not only survivors but social creatures, all working for the good of the colony. When it comes to food, good communication is a necessary practice among ants to ensure the survival of the colony. Ants communicate through chemicals called pheromones.
Life cycle. Worker ants have a life cycle of 76–84 days. Queens survive for several years.
A queen ant Lasius niger (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) has the longest recorded adult life of any insect: 28¾ years in captivity.
The queen is responsible for reproduction, while workers maintain the colony—caring for the young, foraging and hunting for food, cleaning, and defending the nest. In many insect societies, when the queen dies, the entire colony dies along with her due to the lack of reproduction.
It is advised not to squash ants, doing so will only release pheromones and trigger more ants to come to the location and cause more trouble to you and your family. Ants are known to pack a deadly bite that causes excruciating pain for a short time.
Ants become the pallbearer
After a few days the dead ant is carried off and placed on the “ant graveyard” by the other dead ants. This may seem like ants have complex feelings and need a few days to grieve before they dispose of the body, but in reality it's far more chemical than that.
For the same reason, ants won't cross a chalk line. Their pheromone trail is being temporarily disrupted, causing them to search in a different direction to find the trail again.
Therefore, you should not clean up the dead ants so that you can identify their nest. Have you noticed an indoor ant nest? Tracking or trailing to a nest in your home is very crucial. Their presence in your home means food and water contamination as well as structural damage.
Despite the relative smallness of an ant's brain in comparison to humans, scientists consider the ant to have the largest brain of all insects. Regardless of how ant brains are rated, they can communicate, avoid and fight enemies, search for food, show courtship signals, and use complex navigation over long distances.