Ants are social insects that live in colonies comprising of one or a few queens and many workers. The queen  stays deep and safe within a nest, and ants that you see are workers and all female.

When ant colonies reproduce new queens and males are found in the colony. These are flying ants and have wings. Males have smaller heads, larger eyes, large thoraces and a pair of claspers at the end of the gaster.

Once they fly and mate males die quickly. After mating new queens break off their wings and will never fly again. Without wings they are noticeable by their larger body size, larger thorax and larger abdomen.

An ant larva is white and similar to a grub. They have no legs and do not move much on their own. You can see a large dark stomach in their abdomen.  Pupae appear to be white adult ants with legs and antennae pressed close to their bodies.

Most ants eat small insects that they capture, dead insects, or nectar. They need a balance of protein and carbohydrates, protein is important for the queen to be able to lay make eggs and for larvae to mature. Most species live in the soil, but some live in wood, and some live in cavities inside plants or acorns.  Toads, spiders, lizards, other bugs, and other ants may prey on worker ants. Birds and bats kill or eat the flying males and females. Since ants are a social insect, they display behaviors reminding us of family and society. Worker ants take care of larvae by feeding and washing them, ants do communicate with each other and can provide directions or alarm signals to other ants.

A few species are considered pests because they live in or around territory we consider ours, or want to consume food or resources that we need.  Leafcutting ants compete with us for crops, fire ants colonize damp grasslands including lawns, carpenter ants consider dead wood in houses fair game, and a lot of species will  overrun kitchens, pantries, and pet food areas in search of food.  Some ants have a potent sting and some people are hypersensitive to their bites.

Flying ants in or around the home normally alarms people, but flying ants are not necessarily a sign of termites or termite infestations in a home.  Both termites and ants send winged reproducers out of the colony, but there are easy ways to determine whether a bug is an ant with wings or a termite with wings.  The easiest way to tell the difference between the two is to inspect the body.  Termites have two distinct body parts: a head and a body, whereas ants have three distinct body parts: head, abdomen and thorax.

Ants are found indoors or outdoors, on plants, lawns, and gardens.  There are many species of ants but all have one thing in common: the classic head, abdomen , thorax sections of their body.  If you find winged insects and determine that they are not termites, look closely at the body parts.  If the insect has three body segments, it is usually an ant.  If it does not have three visible body parts and just a head and a long body, it is likely a termite.

Another characteristic separating winged ants from termites is their antennae.  All ant antennae have a fairly severe elbow bend to them, but termite antennae do not.  Different sections of an ant's antennae are important to proper inspection and treatment of homes and lawns.  The number of sections and size or absence of club at tip are important factors in the identification of the specific family of ant.

A termite swarmer will have four wings, same as a swarming ant.  The difference is in the length of the wings.  The wings of a swarming termite are all identical length, but wings of a swarming ant differ in size.   Termite swarmers are not harmful to humans or pets, and as they solely serve to propagate the species, do not consume wood or damage property.

While ticks are often thought of as insects they are actually arachnids.  Adult insects have three sets of legs and one set of antennae. Ticks are the most efficient carrier of disease because they attach firmly when sucking blood, feed slowly and may go unnoticed for a considerable time while feeding.  Ticks have four distinct stages of life:  egg, larvae, nymph, and adult.

After an egg hatches, larvae feed on a host. The larva then molts into a nymph. The nymph feeds and molts into an adult.  Male and female adults find and feed on hosts, and females lay eggs after feeding.Ticks wait for host animals in grasses and shrubs.  When brushed by an animal or person they climb onto the host. Ticks only crawl, they are unable to jump or fly. Ticks found on the head have crawled there from lower parts of the body, and some species of ticks will crawl a meter or more towards a host.

There are two groups of ticks, hard and soft ticks. Hard ticks like the common dog tick have a hard shield just behind the mouthparts.  Soft ticks do not have a hard shield and are shaped like a raisin. Soft ticks prefer birds or bats and are rarely encountered unless nesting or roosting in an occupied building.