The Bible tells us that we can learn a lot from ants, but have you ever considered that we can also learn a lot about ants? The good news is that you’ve come to the right place because we’re about to dig deep into the magnificent world of ants.
1. There Are 15,000+ Ant Species
Yes, of course, we’re starting off with a mind-blowing fact. According to scientists, there are thousands of types of ants. The exact number is hard to pinpoint, but apparently, the Myrmecologists have identified more than 15,700 to date. To add to the madness, they estimate that there could actually be up to 22,000. If your mind immediately went to trying to figure out how many you could name, here are 10 common species:
- Carpenter ant
- Fire ant
- Argentine ant
- Red imported fire ant
- Pharaoh ant
- Black ant
- Sugar ant
- Ghost ant
- Field ant
- Pavement ant
You know how elephants are important in nature? Every single one of those tiny little ants is just as important. They’re responsible for supporting the food chain, decomposition, and seed dispersal among other things.
2. Ant Colonies Can Have Millions of Members
While colony sizes aren’t constant, the average ant count per colony is anywhere from a couple of thousand individuals to millions of ants. It all depends on location and species. The big colonies are called supercolonies and they can even span over continents. These mega groups are common in species like fire ants, while carpenter ant colonies are usually small. Regardless of the size, ant colonies have complex social structures. Every ant in the world belongs to a colony and every colony has at least one queen.
3. There Are 20 Quadrillion Ants in the World
15,000 species + colonies with millions of members = 20 quadrillion ants worldwide. According to scientists, that’s the equation! Could you picture 20,000,000,000,000,000 ants? That’s roughly 2.5 million ants for every single living human on Earth.
4. Ants Are Everywhere (Except Antarctica)
Once again, it all comes together, and it all makes sense. Of course, ants would have to be all over the world if we’re looking at 20 quadrillion of them! They call every continent and every type of habitat home, except for Antarctica. Plus, there are some islands, including Iceland, Greenland, parts of Polynesia, and Hawaiian Islands that don’t have native ant species.
5. Ants Lived with Dinosaurs
Ants have had some time to spread their horizons across all of the continents. Apparently, they’re one of the animal species that lived with dinosaurs. Well, one of the insect species. They evolved during the Cretaceous period, which just so happens to be the same time as when dinosaurs were around. If you’d like to hear that in numbers, they appeared on Earth about 130 million years ago. Don’t ask me how ants kept on multiplying while humongous reptiles were roaming around. Plus, they outlived the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event that wiped them out and an entire ice age!
6. They Are One of the Longest-Living Insects
While we’re on the age topic, ants are some of the insects that live the longest. They don’t exactly top the list, because the number one position belongs to the queen termite, which boasts a lifespan of 50+ years. Ant queens can survive for around 30 years, while their worker ants will only live for a year or 3. Ant males aren’t as lucky because they only see a few weeks of life.
7. Ants Are Incredibly Strong
If you could carry 20-50 times your own body weight, what would you try to lift first? Personally, I’d be able to pick up a hippo. That’s insane! But it’s completely normal in the ant world. Some species can lift up to 50 times their own weight because they’ve got strong muscles, sticky foot pads, and tightly formed bodies. Plus, the common American field ant’s neck joint can handle pressures up to 5,000 times its weight. Asian weaver ants, on the other hand, can carry 100 times their body weight. When something weighs more, they incorporate teamwork to get the job done.
8. These Insects Move Insanely Fast
Would you believe me if I told you that an ant is faster than a cheetah? I’m not sure that I would’ve believed myself before I did some research on this. In terms of body lengths per second, arthropods outrun other animals in a heartbeat. But one arthropod stands out above the rest, and that’s the Saharan silver ant. This particular ant reaches a speed of 33.66 inches per second. Not that impressive, right?
Wrong! That’s 108 times its body length, while a cheetah only manages 16 body lengths per second. In the human world, Usain Bolt’s record speed is 6.2 times. If he could run at the body length rate of the Saharan silver ant, he would be able to reach 497 mph.
9. The Most Painful Sting Belongs to an Ant
This should come as no surprise to you because ants belong to the family Formicidae. That’s the bee and wasp family! They even belong to the same order, which is known as Hymenoptera. The most painful insect sting belongs to the bullet ant. That’s according to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index, which is a scale that ranks the pain of insect stings from 1 to 4. It includes all stings, from the least painful southern fire ant sting (1) to the bullet ant’s excruciating sting (4).
Justin O. Schmidt, the man behind the scale, described the sting as “pure, intense, brilliant pain.” According to him, the pain feels like “walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel.” To make matters worse, the pain lasts for 24 hours or more. The sting of the tarantula hawk wasp, another insect with a rating of 4, only lasts for 5 minutes.
10. They Can Form Ant Bridges
Ants are really small, so we can’t expect them to cross big gaps or obstacles without a struggle. But we don’t have to feel sorry for them at all because the little guys have it under control. When they come across such a gap, they link their bodies together to make a living bridge, which they use to cross over.
