Danny Crough, age 9, of Phoenix, Ariz., for his question:

DO ANTS HAVE SKELETONS?

Ants, as we know, are insects  and no genuine insect has any bones in his body. He has no inside skeleton, as you have. However, a tiny ant needs some sort of framework to hold her body together. Actually she has something called an exoskeleton  which is a fancy word meaning an outside skeleton. True, it may feel rather crunchy, but it is not like the bones in a true skeleton.

An ant's body comes in three main parts  a head section, a chest section and a tummy section. She also has six jointed legs and little jaw sections that act as her mouth. And the whole thing is covered by an exoskeleton, which is somewhat like a very tough skin. It protects the outside of her body and also holds the various parts of her insides in their proper places.