What is Honeypot ant?
{{Taxobox | image = HoneyAnt.jpg | image_caption = Honeypot ants | regnum = [[Animal]]ia | phylum = [[Arthropod]]a | classis = [[Insect]]a | ordo = [[Hymenoptera]] | familia = [[Ant|Formicidae]] | subfamilia = [[Formicinae]]}} '''Honeypot ants''', or '''repletes''', are sterile worker [[ant]]s which are used as food stores. They develop swelled [[abdomen]]s, filled with [[food]] by other worker ants. They are living [[storage]] [[container]]s. There are five [[genera]] of honepot ants.<ref>Morgan R. [http://www.sasionline.org/antsfiles/pages/mendax/mendax.html Biology, husbandry and display of the diurnal honey ant ''Myrmecocystus mendax'' Wheeler (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100717014041/http://www.sasionline.org/antsfiles/pages/mendax/mendax.html |date=2010-07-17 }}</ref> Ant species often have [[polymorphism|polymorphs]]: different forms of the same type. The soldier ants which defend colonies are genetically the same as the normal workers. The way they develop is different. This is done by changes in food, or by [[pheromone]]s. Young honeypot ants are more or less force-fed until their gasters (=stomachs) are swelled up. Then they act as living food storage vessels. These food storage workers are called ''repletes''.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Børgesen LW|year=2000|title=Nutritional function of replete workers in the pharaoh's ant, ''Monomorium pharaonis'' (L.)|journal=Insectes Sociaux|volume=47|issue=2|pages=141–146|doi=10.1007/PL00001692|s2cid=31953751}}</ref> These replete workers develop in the North American honeypot ant ''Myrmecocystus mexicanus''. Rissing found that usually the largest workers in the colony develop into repletes; and, if repletes are removed from the colony, other workers become repletes. This shows the flexibility of this polymorphism.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Rissing | first1 = Steven W | year = 1984 | title = Replete caste production and allometry of workers in the honey ant, ''Myrmecocystus mexicanus'' Wesmael (Hymenoptera: Fo