Carpenter Ant
Carpenter Ant (Camponotus pennsylvanicus)
The ant does not have much of a digestive system given its size. However, it does have a process with with it ingests food and absorbs its nutrients. Ants have an infrabuccal pocket in their mouth where food goes to be strained. The next stage is the sucking of food through a tube towards a reservoir. Only liquids and small particles can proceed onto this phase due to the narrow size of the petiole. Leftover chunks of food too big to proceed past the food strainer are ejected as infrabuccal pellets.
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