Ant Species With Astonishing Behavior

Leafcutter ant Follow a worker carrying a green scrap and you will see only the first step in the colony’s work. Underground, ants break the leaves into pulp that feeds a fungus garden. The fungus is the colony’s main food source, which explains why workers carry leaves they do not eat outright.

Honeypot ant Some workers spend most of their lives hanging from the roof of a chamber. Other workers feed them sugary liquid until their abdomens swell like amber beads. When the colony needs food, the swollen workers can pass some of that liquid back to their nestmates.

Army ant Workers grip one another across gaps in a trail, and other ants use them as a bridge. In field experiments, the bridge could shift toward a shorter route as more ants crossed. The movement eventually stopped short of the biggest possible shortcut, which would have taken more workers away from the trail.

Tandem-running rock ant A worker that knows the way to food can lead a single nestmate there. The pair travels slowly, with contact between the ants helping the leader keep pace with the follower. The follower can learn the route and take another worker along on a later trip.

Trap-jaw ant A strike from its jaws can fling the ant itself into the air. High-speed footage showed it using the same snap for two different jumps. Pointing the jaws toward the ground sends the ant upward in an escape jump. A strike against a hard object can send it much farther sideways.

Gliding turtle ant A worker that falls from a tropical canopy can steer back to its own tree. It often lands abdomen-first against the trunk and climbs back up. In field drops, more than eight out of ten of these wingless workers reached the trunk rather than falling all the way to the forest floor.

Florida harvester ant Workers store seeds in damp rooms underground. That pays off when a seed is too large for them to open. Experiments found that the ants quickly took germinating seeds from their stores, then fed the newly exposed, softer seed material to their larvae.

Termite-hunting ant (Megaponera analis) After a raid, some ants have lost a limb or have a termite still hanging on. Other ants pick up injured nestmates and carry them home, where the clinging termites can be removed. Watching the returning column gives a different view of a raid from watching the first rush toward the termites.

These ants go out to forage in desert heat that keeps many other animals under cover. Look for the silvery sheen on a worker’s body. Tiny hairs reflect part of the incoming sunlight and help the ant lose heat to its surroundings, doing two jobs that make a short trip across hot sand possible.

Workers from several nests can move and mingle freely wherever those nests belong to the same supercolony. That cooperation ends at its boundary. Experiments in the ant’s native range found strong aggression between neighboring supercolonies and none between workers from the same one.

Immigrant pavement ant A sidewalk can turn into a meeting point for hundreds of ants tugging at one another. These conflicts can erupt where neighboring colonies contest the same patch of ground. They often draw attention to nests that would otherwise be easy to miss under the cracks.

When floodwater rises, red imported fire ants can lock together into a floating mat. The raft traps air, and the way the ants pack together helps keep water from entering it. An ant that struggles alone in water can be part of a raft that stays afloat for days.

Desert ant with a step counter Researchers lengthened some ants’ legs with tiny stilts and shortened others’ legs after an outward trip. The long-legged ants searched for the nest too far away, while the short-legged ants stopped short. The experiment shows how this desert species estimates the distance it has walked across open ground.