Ant

Quick Take

• There's an ant species found nowhere else on Earth except a two-block stretch of New York City, and its name is exactly what you'd expect. Manhattan's unique species →
• Some ants have evolved a living pantry system so effective that entire colonies can survive desert droughts without any external food storage required. Living food storage explained →
• One ant's sting is described as the most painful in the world, a distinction that has not stopped indigenous tribes from deliberately using it on children for centuries. World's most painful sting →
• A single ant colony stretches thousands of miles across an entire continent, and remarkably, it is not even underground. The 3,700-mile super colony →

The ant is a small invertebrate found all around the world, with the exception of the polar regions (the Arctic Circle and Antarctica). There are numerous ant species inhabiting many different environments worldwide.

Incredible Ant Facts

• There is a species of ants found nowhere else on Earth except between 63^rd and 76^th streets in New York. Its name: ManhattAnt.
• More than 300 spider species have evolved to disguise themselves as ants as a predatory technique.
• There is a single “super ant colony” that stretches 3,700 miles along the Mediterranean coast.
• The largest ant species in the world is the Giant Amazonian, which can measure up to around 1.4 inches in length.

Evolution and Origins

Ants are a group of eusocial insects that belong to the family Formicidae. They are believed to have evolved from wasp-like ancestors about 110 to 130 million years ago during the Cretaceous period.

Ants developed eusocial behavior, in which individuals within a colony work together for the benefit of the colony as a whole, early on in their evolutionary history.

This behavior, along with their ability to farm and cultivate other organisms, has allowed ants to become one of the most successful groups of organisms on Earth, with thousands of known species and a wide range of ecological roles.

Classification and Scientific Name

There are more than 13,800 recognized species of ant worldwide, with scientists estimating that the total number of species may exceed 22,000. Ants are thought to have developed from wasp-like creatures around 100 million years ago, after flowering plants appeared on Earth.

Ants belong to the family Formicidae in the order Hymenoptera (which also includes bees and wasps).

Some species of ants include the following:

Bullet Ant (Paraponera clavata)

The bullet ant is known for its incredible sting, which has been described as “the world’s most painful.” Pain from its sting is almost instantaneous and moves in waves for 12 hours or more, feeling like being shot by a bullet.

The sting of bullet ants has long been used by local tribes in puberty rites and has no known long-term impacts.

What makes the bullet ant sting hurt so much? The ant delivers a neurotoxin known as poneratoxin that disrupts the ability of nerve cells to send electrical signals, causing extreme pain.

Bullet ants are found in colonies of around 300 ants in Central America and the Amazon rainforest.

Argentine Ant (Linepithema humile)

Contrary to its name, the Argentine ant has been introduced across much of the world, including the United States, Australia, and Japan. The Argentine ant is best known for its “super colonies.” The longest-stretching super colony that has been discovered is along the Mediterranean and stretches more than 3,700 miles!

A colony in California stretches more than 500 miles, while other “super colonies” exist in places like Japan.

Black Garden Ant (Lasius niger)

The black garden ant is often known as the ‘common ant’ and is found across much of the world. Queens of the species have been recorded living up to 29 years. Colonies of black garden ants will reach up to 40,000 individuals, but more commonly have fewer than 10,000 workers.

Banded Sugar Ants (Camponotus consobrinus)

Banded sugar ants (or sugar ants) are found across Australia’s East Coast and are a common pest in the environments they live in. While banded sugar ants (true to their name) prefer sweets, they are also predators of other insects, which they disable with a spray of formic acid. The species is mostly nocturnal.

Honeypot Ant (Formicidae)

Honeypot ants are a group within the family Formicidae that use their own bodies as food storage. The abdomen of repletes — a type of honeypot ant adapted specifically to store food — swells and collects nourishment. As the abdomen of repletes grows, they begin to resemble “honey pots.”

During dry seasons, worker ants drain repletes, providing valuable nutrition at a time of lean sustenance. This incredible adaptation makes honeypot ants ideal for desert climates, and they can be found in America’s Southwest, the Sahara, and also in Australia.

Appearance and Behavior

Ants are found in many different sizes and vary in color depending on the species of ant. Some species of ant even have wings, so they are able to fly, which only extends the range of their territory.

In the more humid environment of the tropical jungles of the Southern Hemisphere, the ants are generally of the bigger species, often reaching more than a few centimeters long.

Ants are highly social insects with a complex social structure in which every individual has a specific purpose, or role. Ants live in colonies with a clear social structure, ranging from worker ants that gather food and materials, nurse larvae, and care for the young, to the queen ant that leads the colony and is the only female that reproduces.

The queen ant can often live for over a year, which is considerably longer than the lives of worker ants, which typically last only a couple of months. The queen ant produces between 800 and 1,500 eggs per day, which are fertilized by the sperm of the male ants that are present in the nest.

Remarkably, ant eggs that have not been fertilized will still hatch but produce sterile female ants that become worker ants, as they cannot reproduce.

Diet and Predators

Ants are omnivorous animals and therefore eat a mixture of both plant and animal matter. The diet of the ant primarily consists of leaves, fungi, honey, nectar, small insects, and dead animals, although the exact diet of the ant depends on the species. Some ant species have a more herbivorous diet, whereas other species of ants mainly eat meat.

Due to their abundance and small size, ants have numerous animals that prey on them, from tiny insects to reptiles, mammals, and fish, and even certain species of plants have also developed ways in which they can digest them.

An ant is said to be able to lift up to 50 times its own body weight and withstand being pulled with a force more than 30 times its own body weight. This is the equivalent of an average human adult lifting a fully grown African elephant!