How can I predict what the evolution of ants tends towards?

I want to add realistic elements to a futuristic environment I am working on. Realistically, the animals we know of today will change over time and it's more likely smaller ones would survive, so I decided to start with ants since they're common and will probably be around for a long time.

I don't quite know why ants have such a wild looking morphology compared to mammals, but I would guess it has something to do with being able to leverage their limbs and mandibles without breaking in the most efficient way possible, similar to the way a human back or a bird's neck is curved to diffuse stress so that the culmination of it doesn't transfer to a singular end-point that cuases a fracture.

What I don't know exactly is "why" these specific drastic curves help and how to predict what kind of curves in an ants' back, legs, head, mandibles or abdomen would be more efficient than current ones to predict what the morphology of an ant will tend towards over thousands of years.

However, function also matters for how an animal evolves. So, if I assume most of their time is spent digging and foraging, how can I use that to figure out some of the traits their morphology will tend towards?

posted almost 6 years ago

Vane Voe‭

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