Ants are social insects and are divided up into three castes: workers, males, and queens (figure 1). Workers are sterile, wingless females which range in size from 1/20 inch long to about 1/2 inch long. The workers of some ant species vary in size and are divided into major (large) and minor (small) workers. Ants vary in color from yellow to red to brown and black and various combinations of these. Like all insects, ants have three distinctive body parts: head, thorax, and abdomen. All ants have a pair of elbowed (bent) antennae on the head and a constricted area between the thorax and abdomen called the petiole. The petiole has either one or two nodes (bumps) (figure 2).
A macrophage is a large white blood cell that is an important part of our immune system. The word 'macrophage' literally means 'big eater.' It is an amoeba-like organism and its job is to clean our body of microscopic debris and invaders. macrophage uses a process called phagocytosis to destroy and get rid of unwanted particles in the body. Phagocytosis literally means 'eat cell.' The process works like this: as the macrophage engulfs the particle, a pocket called a phagosome is formed around it.
Macrophages are made in the bone marrow from stem cells, like all other blood cells. When newborn macrophages leave the bone marrow and enter the blood stream, they are called monocytes. You have about two billion of these âyoung macrophagesâ in your blood at any one time.