Flying ants, often called winged ants or alates, are fertile male or female ants that can mate. Most ants including imported fire ants produces winged ants. Most of the ants in a fire ant colony are sterile, wingless female workers that cannot mate. A colony will produce several hundred flying ants at any one time, and they will leave the colony together in a swarm, often during warm weather after a rain. Mating occurs in the air, usually with ants from other mounds, after which males drop to the ground and die, and mated females lose their wings, start new colonies and become queens. In general, males are smaller, and they have smaller heads, larger eyes and a larger thorax than the winged females.

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