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AUTHORS		FAQ NAVIGATION
Who e-mail Handle Web site Phillip Pi y Ant The Ant Farm Randy Rencsok y Mr. Ant AntCam Andre Schmidt y Jinei Myrmecology James Trager y Dr. Ant		Prev Top Next Chapter Chapter Page Page

4.12 Do ants "go to the bathroom"?

They do in a quite literal sense. Ants use out-of-the-way 
chambers in their nests as bathrooms. They may also deposit trash
in the same chambers. Of course, when they are outdoors, the ants
simply deposit waste wherever they happen to be.

Like all animals, ants both defecate and urinate. Feces are the
undigestible particles that pass through the digestive tract, and
since ants have very narrow gullets and swallow only liquids and
very small particles, they don't produce much feces. Urine is the
metabolic waste released by cells into the blood, and then 
filtered out by organs called Malpighian tubules. In ants, the 
main component of urine is whitish crystals of uric acid. Usually
the urine and feces are excreted together as light brown 
droplets. To ant farmers, these droppings are visible as small 
brown smears in one corner of artificial nests. --Dr. Ant