What do ants look like?
Ants come in a variety of sizes, starting as small as 1mm to 50mm in length. They have 6 legs, antennae, eyes, a mouth for chewing or holding things, possibly a stinger and two pairs of wings if they are reproductive.
Where are ants found?
Wherever you are in Australia, you will definitely have seen this little creature in your garden or even in your house (or honey jar).
Ants live all over Australia in every single kind of environment. That is because there are so many types of ants – over 1,200 known species in Australia and over 15,000 worldwide.
Fast facts:
- The ants you’ll see outdoors, and making their way to the pantry, are female worker ants. These females can’t reproduce, and instead spend all their time searching for food, bringing it back to the colony and tending to young deep in the nest.
- Ants can live in colonies of up to tens of thousands of individuals, or in smaller nests containing just a few dozen.
Ants – the full story
Wherever you are in Australia, you will definitely have seen this little creature in your garden or even in your house (or honey jar).
Ants live all over Australia in every single kind of environment. That is because there are so many types of ants – over 1,200 known species in Australia and over 15,000 worldwide. Many kinds of ants love rainforest areas, but ants are also found in the most arid deserts and even underwater.
Ants can live in colonies of up to tens of thousands of individuals, or in smaller nests containing just a few dozen.
Ants work together to modify their environment and provide a large enough food supply to feed a large group. They establish enormous underground worlds, complete with their own complex societies.
The ants you’ll see outdoors, and making their way to the pantry, are female worker ants. These females can’t reproduce, and instead spend all their time searching for food, bringing it back to the colony and tending to young deep in the nest.
Inside the nest, there are ant larvae and pupae, as well as drones, which are fertile males that don’t work. Deep down inside the colony is the queen ant. She is a fertile female that spends most of her time laying eggs.
If you’ve ever seen a big swarm of flying ants, you’ve witnessed ant breeding season. Winged males and females find each other in the air and mate.
The male ant dies after breeding, but the female rids herself of her wings and goes off to establish her own colony. At first, she does all the work of the colony herself, but as she lays more and more female workers, they take over the work and she concentrates only on laying eggs to grow the colony.
Did you know?
Ants can communicate with each other and solve complex problems. To tell other ants where a food source is, an ant lays a chemical trail for other ants to follow. Ants perceive smells with their bent antennae.
Tip
If ants are coming into your house, you can deter them by wiping a few drops of lavender oil near the bases of your doors, windows or other entry points. This scent will confuse the ants and disrupt their chemical trails so one ant can’t tell another where the food source is inside your house.
