Ant facts

• If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse. 
• Ants can lift 20 times their own body weight. 
• With their combined weight greater than the combined weight of all humans, ants are the most numerous type of animal.
• An ant brain has about 250 000 brain cells. A human brain has 10,000 million so a colony of 40,000 ants has collectively the same size brain as a human. 
• Ant brains are largest amongst insects. An ant's brain may have the same processing power as a Macintosh II computer.
• Thousands of years ago, King Solomon wrote: "Go to the ant, consider its ways and be wise". 
• The average life expectancy of an ant is 45-60 days. 
• Adult ants cannot chew and swallow solid food. They rely on juice which they squeeze from pieces of food. 
• The abdomen of the ant contains two stomachs. One stomach holds the food for itself and second stomach is for food to be shared with other ants. 
• There are over 10000 known species of ants. 
• Some worker ants are given the job of taking the rubbish from the nest and putting it outside in a special rubbish dump. 
• Some birds put ants in their feathers because the ants squirt formic acid which gets rid of the parasites. 
• The Slave-Maker Ant (Polyergus rufescens) raids the nests of other ants and steals their pupae. When these new ants hatch, they work as slaves within the colony. 
• If a worker ant has found a good source for food, it leaves a trail of scent so that the other ants in the colony can find the food. 
• Army Ants are nomadic and they are always moving. They carry their larvae and their eggs with them in a long column.
• The Army Ant (Ecitron burchelli) of South America can have as many as 700,000 members in its colony. 
• The Leaf Cutter Ants cut out pieces of leaves which they take back to their nests. 
• Wood ant workers live seven to ten years.
• The queen ant lives up to ten or twenty years.
• The wood ant can threaten the enemy with open jaws.
• There are thirty-five thousand kinds of ants in the world.
• Some ants sleep seven hours a day.
• Ants are normally from 2 to 7 mm long, although carpenter ants can stretch to 2 cm, or almost an inch. 

Fire ants

• Some ants care for and "farm" other insects.
• Ants don't sleep.
• When the only queen ant dies, so does the entire colony, because no new workers are born.
• The study of ants is called Myrmecology.
• For every human in the world there are one million ants.
• The brain of an ant has about 250,000 brain cells.
• The sense of smell of an ant is just as good as a dog's is.
• Ants can lift an object up to fifty times their body-weight and carry it over their heads. They don't do this with their feet, but with their mouths.
• A leaf-cutter ant queen mates only once - just before establishing a new colony. She can then keep the sperm viable for up to 15 years and produce as many as 300 million offspring.

Posted in: Animals,Entomology,Zoology