Ants

Ants can drink from tiny water droplets by using the surface tension to form the water into a ball!

Some ants can survive without food for up to two weeks by using stored fat in their bodies!

Honey pot ants use special workers as living storage tanks, filling them with liquid food!

Ants clean their antennae after every meal using special brushes on their front legs!

Conservation & Population

Scientists estimate there are about 20 quadrillion (20,000,000,000,000,000) ants on Earth!

Some rare ant species are protected by law, and it’s illegal to collect them without permission!

Special Abilities

Some ants can swim and have special hairs that help them move across water!

Trap-jaw ants can close their jaws at speeds of up to 230 kilometers (143 miles) per hour!

Some ants can glide through the air when they fall from trees, steering themselves back to the trunk!

Some ants can spray acid from their abdomens to defend themselves!

Desert ants can count their steps to find their way home, like having a built-in pedometer!

Some ants can generate forces of up to 500 times their own body weight with their mandibles!

Fun and Unique Facts

If a human were as strong as an ant relative to their size, they could lift a car over their head!

The largest ant colony ever found contained over 300 million worker ants!

The fastest ant in the world can run at a speed of 855 millimeters per second (approximately 33.66 inches per second).

Some parasitic ant queens can change their body odor to match another species, sneaking into their colonies to take over!

Bullet ants get their name from their sting, which is said to feel like being shot and can hurt for up to 24 hours!

Some ant species have evolved to look exactly like the thorns on acacia trees to avoid predators!

Some ant species can determine the age of their nestmates by tasting special chemicals on their body surface!

The Amazon jungle has so many ants that they make up about 30% of all animal biomass in the rainforest!

Some ant species create “living doors” by having soldiers with specially modified heads that exactly fit their nest entrances!

Certain ant species can detect and avoid areas where their colony members have died by sensing special chemical warnings!

Some ants practice “social vaccination” by sharing small amounts of pathogens to build colony-wide immunity!

Exploding ants in Southeast Asia can rupture their own bodies to release sticky, toxic fluid to defend their colony!

Some trap-jaw ants can launch themselves backward by firing their jaws against the ground, jumping eight times their body length!

Certain ant species build special chambers in their nests that act like natural air conditioning systems!

Some ants in the Sahara Desert can run across sand that’s hot enough to fry an egg in less than one second!

Some ant species have special ultraviolet reflective patches on their bodies that help them communicate!

Certain ant species can survive being completely frozen and thaw back to life when temperatures warm up!

Some ants build special waste management chambers in their nests and have dedicated waste disposal workers!

Some ants in Australia use their bodies to plug holes in trees during floods, preventing their nests from flooding!

Certain ant species have evolved to look like wasps or spiders to scare away predators!

Some ants create special nursery chambers with perfect temperature and humidity for raising their young!

Certain ant species build their nests in patterns that follow mathematical rules similar to crystal formation!

Some ants can detect plant diseases and avoid harvesting leaves from infected plants!

Certain ant species create special food storage rooms with antimicrobial coatings to prevent their food from spoiling!

Some desert ants have tiny hair-like structures on their bodies that harvest water from morning fog!

Ant larvae can produce up to four different types of silk, each with special properties for different colony needs!

Some ant species create special sun-facing chambers that act like greenhouses to grow their fungus gardens!

Certain ants in the rainforest can sense approaching rain hours before it starts and seal their nest entrances!

Some ants in mountain regions build special snow-proof entrance chambers that prevent their nests from freezing!