Most of us may often take no notice of ants. But this is not the case for Huang Yifan, a 17-year-old 1 from Shandong. He likes ants and has discovered many 2 secrets behind their behavior. It helped him 3 a national high school science competition.
He found that though ants live underground for a long time, they can still find out whether other ants 4 the same nest (窝) by looking at, smelling and touching them.
To test his 5 . Huang made a nest with about 100 ants, using a plastic bottle. He took one ant out and painted its abdomen (腹部) blue. Then he put the painted ant back into the nest and 6 to see what would happen to it. "After the ant which was painted blue goes into the nest, the other ants try to attack (攻击) and 7 it out of the nest with difficulty." Huang said. "But when the ants discover the painted ant belongs to the same nest by using their sense of 8 , they stop attacking."
Huang 9 further with instruments like cameras to learn about the ants' ability to tell their own nestmates. "Social insects such as ants and bees have a (n) 10 ability to do that. It's especially fun that ants are 11 to humans in some ways. They also know how to work together," Huang said.
Huang's achievements don't depend on luck but on his great 12 . Huang has 13 about 1, 000 ants since he was ten, using his 14 of the needed temperature and light. Even if most people think the tests are boring, he sticks to doing them 15 . And he will go on doing more scientific projects in the future.
