Ants may appear small and inconsequential, yet they’re among the most intriguing creatures on Earth. Their strength and intelligence make them remarkable creatures – capable of far more than most would believe!
Ants, for instance, use trails of pheromones to locate food sources and also clone themselves to form new queens.
1. They can lift 50 times their own weight
Scientists have recently discovered that leafcutter ants have an incredible capacity for lifting objects 50 times their own weight, meaning if you were the size of an ant, you could lift 9,000 pounds – enough to topple buildings!
Ants’ impressive strength stems from their microscopic frames and giant muscles. Ants possess muscles with greater cross-sectional area relative to body size than larger animals, so their muscles generate more force pound-for-pound.
Ants possess extraordinary endurance – they can swim, and their antennae allow them to locate food from long distances. In fact, some species even manage to build lifeboats that float for extended periods.
Ants remain among the most common insects on our planet despite their extraordinary abilities, often mistaken as pests that invade picnic blankets. But these insects offer much more than meets the eye, and learning more about them would certainly be worthwhile.
2. They can swim
Ants are highly adaptable insects found on all continents except Antarctica. Their complex societies consist of various types of ants each fulfilling an important job within society and communicating using pheromone trails for communication purposes.
Though ants may not be designed to swim, they can still survive when accidentally submersed in water due to their ability to float and their hair-thin legs which allow them to navigate their way around it. Unfortunately, prolonged subsea swimming would expose them to gases and moisture which may flood their respiratory systems, potentially killing them off quickly.
They can avoid flooding by foraging near the edge of ponds or building rafts to float on lakes, rivers or oceans; this emergency response prevents drowning.
Ants are remarkable insects; they have evolved to survive by adapting and being resilient enough to feed on various food sources – which is one reason they have become such successful insects in terms of adaptation and resilience. Ants also can sense Earth’s magnetic field which helps them navigate their way.
3. They can live for 40 years
Ants play an essential part in our ecosystem. Not only are they an invaluable force for seed dispersion and clean-up services, they are also often called the world’s janitors!
One of the more surprising facts about ants is that queen ants can live for 40 years! Queen ants live longer than most humans.
When an ant feels threatened, they use pheromones as signals to their colony and avoid predators while communicating among themselves. Pheromones help the ants communicate more easily as well.
Ants have the amazing ability to create rafts by joining their legs together and linking their feet, which can assist them with crossing rivers or traveling through rainforests. Their rafts are constructed using tiny pieces of fungus or other plant life. Ants are known for being very neat creatures – even taking trash away from their nests to a nearby dump site!
4. They can carry an object that weighs fifty times their own body weight
Many websites claim that ants can lift objects up to fifty times their bodyweight; but is this really possible for 2-milligram ants to handle this much weight?
Have you ever seen a line of ants carrying something over their heads? Chances are it was food they needed for their nest and they did so effortlessly due to their strong grips.
Ants have astonishing strength; one single ant can support roughly as much weight as a human brain! And their strength doesn’t end there: Ants are one of the strongest animals relative to their size, becoming even stronger when working together as a group.
Fire ants have the ability to close their “mouths” at 140mph to create a living raft for survival in times of flooding, while aphid-herding ants can kill their victims by biting holes into them and sipping blood! And this might seem impressive until you hear about aphid herder ants that bite holes into their victims and drink blood!
5. They can navigate using the earth’s magnetic field
Ants are among the most intriguing insects on the planet. Although small in size, ants are highly versatile creatures able to travel long distances and endure extreme temperatures; using magnetic fields from Earth as navigation aids. Furthermore, their antennae sense vibrations from ground vibrations while their special scent allows them to detect threats in their immediate environment.
Ant colonies are led by a queen and her workers. When foraging for food sources, worker ants follow other ants’ trails of pheromones back to the colony and alert other workers of what has been discovered. Once food has been brought back home by one worker ant, other members will carry it back with them and inform other ants of its location.
Although ants cannot swim like humans, they have developed their own version of doggy paddling that helps them remain submerged for extended periods of time and create lifeboats for emergency flooding situations.
6. They are the world’s first farmers
Mathematicians used algorithms inspired by ants’ work ethic to design one of the world’s fastest computers based on them. Experts estimate there could be up to 10 quadrillion (one billion billion) ants alive at any given time in our planet!
Ants live in large colonies consisting of millions of workers. Ants can be likened to human hair in size and work cooperatively to complete amazing feats like transporting fruits weighing five times their bodyweight!
Ants lack ears, yet they can “listen” through vibrations in the ground using special sensors on their feet and knees. Their antennae and long hairs allow them to sense around. Ants are excellent survivors that can float under water for extended periods before holding their breath to survive flooding events; some species even construct lifeboats to aid survival!
Certain ant species have the ability to enslave other ants from rival colonies and force them into becoming slaves or soldiers for them.
7. They are enslavers
Ants have earned themselves a reputation for being hardworking, industrious creatures who sacrifice themselves in service of their colony. While this may be the case with most ants, some specialize in taking advantage of weaker cousins by abducting and using them as slaves in their own colony. These “slave-making ants” even attack other colonies to capture babies for use as slaves within their own nests.
Slave ants are extremely effective at their job, producing hundreds of worker ants per year despite their small stature. Their workers can carry items weighing 100 times their own bodyweight with ease!
Ants possess not only impressive physical strength but also some remarkable mental abilities. Although they might not possess Hank Pym-level strength, ants can still float on water, build underground tunnels and attack larger creatures in large numbers to sabotage them – truly remarkable creatures that deserve greater appreciation than they receive currently. Ants were one of humanity’s earliest farmers and can survive in extreme environments like Siberia’s permafrost or the scorching Sahara without trouble.
8. They can kill
While it may be unpleasant to have them crawl around your home, ants are truly fascinating creatures. Their diminutive size belies an astonishing strength; in fact, their muscles possess a higher ratio of strength-to-weight ratio than many larger animals such as humans; this allows them to lift objects up to fifty times their bodyweight with ease!
Bullet ants from Panama jungle are known to be the largest in the world and can grow to be up to 1.6 inches long!
Researchers discovered the fossil of Titanomyrma lubei, an enormous prehistoric ant that measured nearly two inches long – about the length of a hummingbird!, during 2011 research in Wyoming.
Ants have been around for millions of years and can be found on every continent except Antarctica. Ants make up 15-20% of terrestrial animal biomass and use pheromone trails to communicate, alerting fellow ants about predators or food sources they discover; they even use these signals as markers between dead or living creatures.