Army Ants

Written By:  Andrew Eide

Since the previous blog was on marching when I was in the Navy I felt it would be amusing to talk about army ants today. My information on army ants will be basic. If you desire additional information you will have to do some research on your own.

Army ants are a specific variety of ants. They possess long and pointed mandibles (jaws), long legs, and an elongated body. Army ants vary in color from deep golden to dull brown.

The typical army ant colony contains about one million ants, including a queen, her eggs, soldiers and workers. Every ant in the colony follows a hierarchy. The queen lays eggs all day. Soldiers focus on defending the colony. Workers do the foraging while smaller worker ants take care of the queen’s eggs.

Army ants are carnivorous and feed on other insects. However they are capable of capturing larger animals such as lizards, birds and pigs by organizing group raids. Army ants have a voracious appetite and can kill and eat 50,000 to 100,000 insects per day. Due to this food requirement army ants have to migrate after some time. They form temporary nests and migrate to a new place after raiding a colony of rival ants. Any ants left in the raided colony become the slaves of the new ant society.

Instead of traditional nests as used by other ants the army ant nests are made up of the ants themselves. They form walls in the nest in a structured way so that the queen and her eggs are protected and that there are enough chambers and corridors for transportation of food.

While normal ants have compound eyes the army ants have single eyes. They communicate by chemical signals, vibrations and touch. The chemicals act as a device to communicate a need for food, assistance and in changing behavior patterns.

I have watched programs on television discussing the march of army ants. Due to the sheer number of army ants in the march people can hear them coming. They know if they remain in their homes, and the army ants come marching through, they are likely to be devoured by the ants. If you think that several piranha are voracious and can clean an animal or human down to bones in a short period of time, multiply that by several times and you will understand how quickly millions of marching army ants can devour an animal or human down to bones in a very short period of time.