Ant Trivia

Interesting Facts About Ants

Myrmecophobia is the fear of ants.

Believe it or not the ant has the largest brain, in proportion to its size, in the animal kingdom. The ant also happens to be able to lift 50 times and pull 30 times its own weight .

Ants yawn.

It's really hard to  drown an ant because these resiliant little creatures have extremely tiny brathing tubes which water can't penetrate .

Some ants like to raid nests of other ants and take the workers as slaves.

Ants have two stomachs, one for them and one to feed others. However the poor old ant can't chew its food.

Some queen ants lick the eggs to make them hatch.

There are over 10,000 known species of ants.

Ants love nothing better than to protect, groom and even raise aphids, scale bugs and bark lice. And why? They want the "milk" that they excrete which is called honeydew. Ants will also protect their new found friends, carrying them around in their jaws similar to a mother cat and her kittens.

The Hormiga culona (AKA big bottom or fat butt ant) has been a delicacy in Columbia for centuries. Normally these fat butt ants are roasted in salt and eaten as a snack. Believe it or not they have become very popular in France and England. Verdict - they don't taste like chicken but more like buttered popcorn.

In Australia the Aborigines eat Honeypot ants (Melophorus bagoti Lubbock and Campanoyus spp.). They pop the abdomen with their teeth and drink the sweet nectar. The sugar is found in the worker ants who fill their abdomens up with the honeydew taken from our friends the aphids, scale bugs and bark lice we mentioned before.

An ant can survive for up to 2 weeks underwater.