Ants Facts

Ants have graveyards.

An ant brain has about 250,000 neurons. A human brain has around 86 billion—roughly 344,000 times more. Yet scientists study ant colonies as 'superorganisms' where collective behavior emerges from simple individual interactions, similar to how consciousness emerges from billions of neurons in our brains.

The dulotic ant Polyergus rufescens raids the nests of other ant species and steals their pupae. When these pupae hatch in the raider's colony, they imprint on their captors and perform all the colony's work—the Polyergus ants cannot even feed themselves without their captive workforce.

If a man could run as fast for his size as an ant can, he could run as fast as a racehorse.

Ant lifespans vary dramatically by role: worker ants typically live 1-3 years, while queen ants can live up to 30 years—making them some of the longest-lived insects on Earth.

If an ant is drunk, a fellow comrade will carry him back to the nest to sleep off the alcohol.

Ants can lift objects 10 to 50 times their own body weight, and can withstand forces up to 5,000 times their weight before their necks rupture.

Anteaters prefer termites to ants.

Ants can survive in a microwave because they're small enough to dodge the electromagnetic waves, which create hot and cold spots about 12cm apart.

Ants have tiny magnetic compasses in their antennae which help them navigate.

Queen ants have one of the longest life-spans of any known insect - typically up to 30 years. Western harvester ant queens can live up to 40 years!