問題詳情

III         Ants are insects whose social life is highly organized, comparable only to that of honeybees or termites. Ants are considered social insects because they live in organized colonies andform complex societies. They are generally composed of three castes: the queen, the drones andthe workers. Each caste has its own specific morphology and carries out specific tasks withinthe community. Colony life has many advantages, one of the most important  17  increasedprotection for the entire group.         Generally, each ant colony has only one queen. She spends her life laying eggs. There arealso female worker ants that do not reproduce, instead carrying out a number of other tasks:foraging for food, caring for the queen and her brood, building galleries, maintaining the nest,  and defending the anthill. The only purpose that drones serve is to fertilize queens, and dronesare only found inside the colony for short periods of time. Shortly after  18  , drones die.         Ants generally mate in the air. The queen’s abdomen contains a small spherical receptaclecalled a spermatheca, which receives spermatozoa during conception. The spermathecaproduces nutrients that keep the semen alive for several years, allowing the queen to laythousands of eggs without mating with another  19 .         Once she is in her new home, the queen lays her first eggs. She cares for the first broodherself, feeding them from her own reserves. The first adult workers are very small. This firstgeneration of workers, and all future generations, are in charge of all the work in the anthill.         Ants communicate with one another by brushing their antennae together, through soundand especially through odorous chemical substances called pheromones. These chemicalparticles, released by both workers and the queen, regulate sexual and social behaviour withina species. In some species, if an old queen is sick, she releases  20  that cause workers to feed certain larvae in order to produce a new queen who will take over when the old queen dies.
17.
(A) being
(B) is
(C) has been
(D) to be

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