25 Ant Facts: Tiny Insects With Giant Superpowers

There are more than 14,000 known species of ant, and scientists think thousands more are still undiscovered.

Ants live on every continent except Antarctica.

Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors more than 100 million years ago and lived alongside the dinosaurs.

An ant colony usually has one or more queens, many female workers and, at certain times, winged males.

All worker ants are female. Males usually live only long enough to mate.

Queens of some ant species can live for nearly 30 years, making them some of the longest-living insects.

Ants communicate mainly through chemical scents called pheromones, laying scent trails to lead others to food.

Ants use their antennae to smell, touch, taste and communicate.

Many ants can lift and carry objects many times heavier than their own bodies.

There are about 20 quadrillion ants on Earth

In 2022, scientists combined hundreds of studies from around the world and estimated that there are about 20 quadrillion ants on Earth. That's 20,000,000,000,000,000 ants, or around 2.5 million ants for every person. Together, all these ants weigh more than all the world's wild birds and wild mammals combined, and about a fifth as much as all humans. Ants play a huge role in nature by turning soil, spreading seeds and recycling dead plants and animals.

Ants have two stomachs: one for their own food and a "social stomach" for storing food to share with nestmates.

Leafcutter ants farm fungus. They cut leaves to feed underground fungus gardens and eat the fungus. They were farming millions of years before humans.

Some ants "farm" aphids, protecting them in return for a sweet liquid called honeydew that the aphids produce.

Honeypot ants have special workers whose bellies swell up like living jars full of sweet nectar, which they share when food is scarce.

Army ants don't build permanent nests. Instead, they form a living nest out of their own linked bodies, called a bivouac.

When floods come, fire ants link their bodies together to form living rafts that can float for days.

Argentine ants have formed a giant supercolony stretching thousands of kilometres along the coast of southern Europe.

The trap-jaw ant snaps its jaws shut so fast it's one of the quickest movements in the animal world, and it can even use them to fling itself into the air.

The bullet ant of South America is said to have the most painful sting of any insect.

India's red ant chutney has a GI tag

In the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, local tribal communities have long made a spicy chutney from red weaver ants and their eggs, mixed with salt, ginger, garlic and chillies. Known as Similipal kai chutney, it's prized for its tangy taste and is traditionally believed to be good for health. In January 2024, it received a Geographical Indication (GI) tag, recognising it as a special product from the region. Weaver ants are common across India and build their nests by "sewing" leaves together with silk from their larvae.

Ants clean their nests by carrying out rubbish and dead nestmates, which they recognise by the smell of chemicals released after death.

Instead of one long sleep, worker ants take hundreds of very short naps each day.

A fungus called Ophiocordyceps can take control of an ant's behaviour, making it climb a plant and clamp on before the fungus grows out of its body. This is why it's called the "zombie-ant fungus".

Some ant species raid other ant colonies, stealing their young and raising them as workers.

Termites are often called "white ants", but they aren't ants at all. They're more closely related to cockroaches.