What does ant crop do?

Answer 1

An ant's crop is much like any other crop. It holds food, or sometimes other things that the ant can swallow when she needs to carry it around but does not yet want to digest it. When she does need to digest it, she passes the stuff down to the stomach, just as we do, only we do not have a big oesophagus (gullet) to store our food in, so we just pass it straight onto the stomach.

The sort of thing an ant keeps in its crop is liquid food, like nectar or juice. The crop is a useful way to carry such stuff. If an ant finds solid food, such as a seed or a caterpillar, she carries it in its jaws, like a dog. The liquid food in the crop she can pass onto other ants to feed them, or to feed her queen, or feed the queen's babies (grubs, otherwise known as larvae).

Jon