Life:SpeciesName: Ants
Lifespan: 12-15 years, Queen ants can live up to 30 years
Description: Ants were the very first living creatures to come about. They were created in order to maintain the Oxygen cycle along with the trees Slough created, though they are not restricted to trees or land - some species can swim while most can survive 24 hours underwater. Other than that, they are vital in preserving various life cycles, and the existence of other creatures would be impossible without them as they clean up the environment and improve soil quality - capable of moving 50 tonnes of soil per year in one square mile.
To help them with cleaning, ants have incredibly powerful jaws called mandibles which allow them to lift up to fifty times their weight and break items apart to carry them to the colony, and they can cooperate to lift even heavier things - in some ants, these mandibles can close at a speed of 230km/h, exerting force 300 times its own weight and allowing it to both kill other creatures and fling itself to safety by burying its head into the ground and using its mandibles for leverage. This is the record for fastest movement in the animal kingdom.
Moreover, ants are able to walk up steep surfaces and even on ceilings with ease, and certain sub-species can do so while carrying 100 times their own weight. Some are carnivorous while others leaf-eaters, making them among them ultimate scavengers.
Worker, soldier and queen ants are all female, with male ants, drones, only living a few months for no other purpose than to fertilise a princess, after which they die - and some ants are in fact capable of asexual reproduction, meaning they do not need males at all.
By creating colonies, defecating and bringing food back to the colony, ants unintentionally aerate the soil and introduce extra nutrients into the earth, thus increasing its quality greatly. Other than humans, ants are the only creatures that farm other animals (aphids) - and not only that, they are capable of enslaving other ant species. Further, ants are a vital pollinator, without which many flowers would die out, and also do a very good job of managing their own population - different colonies are perpetually at war with one another.
Overall, these little creatures are incredibly important for the development of advanced life on Planet Galbar.
