The strongest ant in the world. Ants are cannibals. What does an insect look like

There are not too many ants dangerous to humans, but there are killer ants a large number of frightening stories. These bloodthirsty ants have become true legends.

For people, ants can be really dangerous, there are not so many of them, but it is better not to meet them. Here are the ants that have a bloodthirsty disposition:

• Army ants living in Africa and South America;
• Australian bulldog ants;
• bullet ant;
• Fire ants.

The bite of each of the above ants can be fatal if a person has an acute allergic reaction. In this case, fatal intoxication and suffocation can occur.
Of course, such cases are exceptional, so calling all these ants "killers" because of isolated cases is not fair. But, nevertheless, you should learn more about those ants that people fear more than the most ferocious predators.

Army ants or siafu ants

These ants move in large columns. Everything that gets in the way of the soldiers is immediately destroyed. With powerful jaws, these insects grab woodlice, beetles, and larvae running past, tear them to pieces and take them to the colony. If the nomadic ants meet a larger prey, for example, a mouse, a lizard, a snake, then they pile on it with a moving black mass, and there is not a trace of the animal.

A feature of nomadic ants is that they do not have an anthill. Their reproduction takes place in temporary bivouacs, which are formed by worker ants, connecting with each other with their jaws. This bivouac has a spherical shape. It seems that there is chaos, but in fact everything is organized in it.

For most of their lives, these ants roam, looking for food, which is why their name came from.

Siafu ant soldiers look intimidating: they are quite large - up to 1.5 centimeters in length, with huge jaws that exceed the size of the head.

Female army ants are really huge - their body length reaches 5 centimeters. They reach this size during oviposition. They are considered the largest among all the studied species of ants.

Siafu females have another record - they are able to lay up to 130 thousand eggs daily. No other insect has such a high fecundity.

Army ants are called African killer ants, but in reality they are not. Their danger is greatly exaggerated. Indeed, the bites of these insects are very painful, in addition, they can provoke severe allergic reactions. If a person gets into the center of such a colony, he will be seriously bitten. But these ants cannot eat a person. They feed only on other insect species and small vertebrates such as frogs, lizards, snakes and chicks.

Some birds have adapted to and benefit from living near roaming ants, such as the ocellated ant that eats insects that are frightened off by a moving colony of killer ants. In this regard, ants accompany colonies of African ants.

So, African killer ants are the fruit of the rich imagination of writers of adventure stories. It is worth noting that the forest ants living in our country are just as bloodthirsty, they destroy a huge number of insects. All stories about destroyed villages and bones that remain from large animals and people gnawed in a second are just fiction.

bullet ant

The name of these ants is due to the fact that when they bite, there is a very strong pain which hits the body like a bullet. The poison of these ants contains the strongest toxin - poneratoxin. After a bullet ant stings, the soreness persists for 24 hours, which is why they are also called "24 hour ants".

On the Schmidt scale, the pain from this ant sting reaches the highest level 4, that is, it surpasses the pain from any other insect stings.

These ants are among the largest on the planet: the body length of the female reaches 3 centimeters, and the working individual - up to 2.5 centimeters.

Ants live 24 hours in South America. Some Native American tribes use them to perform terrible initiation rituals for men, during which sleeves with these ants are put on the hands of the boys. After the ceremony, for several days, the hands may not move, become insensitive and turn black.

Black bulldog ants

These insects are quite large, but they did not become famous for their size, but for their bites. Statistics show that more people die every year in Tasmania from the bites of bulldog ants than from the attacks of snakes, spiders and sharks combined.

Such a bite provokes a powerful allergic reaction- more than 3% of victims develop anaphylactic shock. It is impossible to know in advance what kind of reaction the body will have. Even a person with a normal reaction to a bee or wasp sting can be fatal after being stung by a bulldog ant.

These ants are very primitive compared to their counterparts, which may be why they are so poisonous.

Fire Red Ant

These ants are considered the most dangerous ants in the world. This is not even due to painful bites and strong poison, but to their ability to take root in various conditions. They are spreading around the world at lightning speed.

The homeland of red fire ants is Brazil, from there they moved on merchant ships to China, the USA and Australia. In addition, they are trying to destroy them in Taiwan, the Philippines and Hong Kong, but so far the ants are winning.

During the bite of a fire ant, a toxin, solenopsin, penetrates into the wound. According to the Schmidt pain scale, such pain corresponds to pain from a burn, which is where the name comes from. Every year, these ants bite thousands of people, almost all victims have a strong allergic reaction, and in isolated cases anaphylactic shock occurs.

Fire ants bite both wild and domestic animals. About $5 billion is spent annually in the United States on medical and veterinary care after being stung by these ants.

People should understand that all ants, even dangerous and aggressive ones, are necessary for nature. These insects are pest fighters, they destroy sick and dying insects and animals. Do not confuse the concepts of "harmful" and "dangerous", even the most dangerous ants deserve respect.

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The millions of species of insects that live on earth today play a vital role in the ecosystem of our planet. Although most of them are safe, some can cause a lot of trouble for a person, and some can be poisonous and even deadly. From familiar ants and flies to more exotic beetles, here's a list of the 25 most dangerous insects in the world.

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1. Termites

Termites do not pose a direct danger to humans, they play an important role for the environment, moreover, in some cultures they are even eaten. But at the same time, baby termites can cause enormous damage to infrastructure, sometimes making houses completely uninhabitable.

3. Black-legged tick

Every year, the black-legged tick infects thousands of people with Lyme disease, which starts with a rash around the bite that looks like a bull's eye. Early symptoms of this disease include headache and fever. With the further development of the disease, the victim begins to suffer from problems with the cardiovascular system. Few die from these bites, but the effects can continue for years after the unpleasant encounter with the tick.

4. Army ants

The first creature on our list that is dangerous in the literal sense of the word are roaming ants, known for their predatory aggression. Unlike other ant species, roamers do not build their own permanent nests. Instead, they create colonies that migrate from one place to another. These predators constantly move during the day, preying on insects and small vertebrates. In fact, the entire combined colony can kill more than half a million insects and small animals in one day.

Most wasps do not pose much direct danger, but certain varieties, such as the German wasp of North America, reach large sizes and can be incredibly aggressive. If they sense danger or notice an intrusion into their territory, they can sting repeatedly and very painfully. They will mark their aggressors and in some cases pursue them.

6. Black Widow

Although the sting of a female black widow spider can be very dangerous to humans due to the neurotoxins released during the bite, if the necessary medical attention is provided in time, the effects of the bite will be limited to only some pain. Unfortunately, isolated cases of death from the bite of a black widow still occurred.

7. Hairy Caterpillar

Caterpillars of the Megalopyge opercularis coquette moth look cute and fluffy, but don't be fooled by their cartoony appearance: they are extremely venomous.

Usually people believe that the hairs themselves are burning, but in reality the poison is released through the spikes hidden in this "wool". The spines are extremely brittle and remain in the skin after being touched. The poison causes a burning sensation around the affected area, headache, dizziness, vomiting, sharp pains in the abdomen, damage to the lymph nodes, and sometimes respiratory arrest.

8. Cockroaches

The cockroach is known as a carrier of many diseases that are dangerous to humans. Main danger living together with cockroaches lies in the fact that they climb into toilet bowls, garbage cans and other places where bacteria accumulate, as a result, they are their carriers. Cockroaches can cause a variety of diseases, from worms and dysentery to tuberculosis and typhoid. Cockroaches can carry fungi, single-celled organisms, bacteria, and viruses. And here's a fun fact - they can live for months without food or water.

10. Bed bugs

A person does not directly feel the bite itself, since the composition of the saliva of the bug includes an anesthetic substance. If the bug could not get close to the blood capillary the first time, it can bite a person several times. At the site of the bug bite begins severe itching, and a blister may also appear. Occasionally, people experience a severe allergic reaction to a bug bite. Fortunately, 70 percent of people feel almost no effects from them.

Bedbugs are household insects and do not belong to the group of vectors infectious diseases However, in their body they can retain pathogens that transmit infections through the blood for a long time, for example, viral hepatitis B, and pathogens of plague, tularemia, and Q-fever can also persist. They cause the greatest harm to people with their bites, depriving a person of normal rest and sleep, which can subsequently adversely affect moral health and performance.

11. Human gadfly

12. Centipede

The centipede (Scutigera coleoptrata) is an insect that is also called the flycatcher and is thought to have originated in the Mediterranean. Although other sources speak of Mexico. The centipede has become very common throughout the world. Although the appearance of such insects is unattractive, they generally perform useful work, as they eat other insect pests and even spiders. True, with entomophobia (fear of insects), such an argument will not help. Usually people kill them because of unpleasant appearance, although centipedes are even protected in some southern countries.

The flycatcher is a predator, they inject the victim with poison and then kill it. Often flycatchers settle in apartments without harming food or furniture. They love moisture, often centipedes can be found in basements, under baths, in toilets. Flycatchers live from 3 to 7 years, newborns have only 4 pairs of legs, increasing them by one with each new molt.

Typically, the bite of such an insect is not disturbing to humans, although it can be compared with a small bee sting. For some, it can even be painful, but usually it is limited to tears. Of course, centipedes are not insects that are responsible for thousands of deaths, but many of us would be surprised to learn that someone dies from these stings every year. The fact is that an allergic reaction to insect venom is possible, but this still happens extremely rarely.

13. Black Scorpion

Although scorpions do not belong to insects, as they belong to the order of arthropods from the class of arachnids, we nevertheless included them in this list, especially since black scorpions are the most dangerous species of scorpions. Most of them live in South Africa, especially often they can be found in desert areas. Black scorpions are distinguished from other species by their thick tails and thin legs. Black scorpions sting, injecting their prey with poison that can cause pain, paralysis and even death.

14. Predator

15. Bullet Ant

Paraponera clavata is a species of large tropical ants from the genus Paraponera Smith and the subfamily Paraponerinae (Formicidae), which have a strong sting. This ant is called a bullet for the reason that the bite victims compare it to a shot from a pistol.

A person bitten by such an ant may feel throbbing and relentless pain for days after the bite. In some local Indian tribes (Satere-Mawe, Maue, Brazil), these ants are used in very painful rites of initiation of boys to adulthood (which leads to temporary paralysis and even blackening of the stung fingers). During the study of the chemical composition of the poison, a paralyzing neurotoxin (peptide) was isolated from it, called poneratoxin.

16 Brazilian Wandering Spider

Also known as Phoneutria, Brazilian wandering spiders are venomous creatures that live in tropical South America and Central America. In the 2010 Guinness Book of Records, this type of spider was named the most venomous spider in the world.

The venom of this genus contains a powerful neurotoxin known as PhTx3. At lethal concentrations, this neurotoxin causes loss of muscle control and breathing problems, leading to paralysis and eventually suffocation. A bite of moderate pain, poison causes instant infection of the lymphatic system, entering the bloodstream in 85% of cases leads to heart failure. Patients feel wild stiffness during life, men sometimes experience priapism. There is an antidote that is on par with antibiotics, but because of the severity of the harm to the body of the poison, the detox procedure is actually equal to the chance of survival of the victim.

17. Malarial mosquito

18. Rat fleas

19. African honey bee

African bees (also known as killer bees) are the descendants of bees brought from Africa to Brazil in the 1950s in an attempt to improve honey production in that country. Some African queens have begun to interbreed with native European bees. The resulting hybrids moved north and are still found in Southern California.

African bees look the same and in most cases behave like European bees, which in currently reside in the United States. They can only be detected by DNA analysis. Their stings also do not differ from the sting of an ordinary bee. One very important difference between the two varieties is the defensive behavior of the African bees when defending their nest. In some attacks in South America, African bees have killed livestock and people. This behavior has earned the AMPs the nickname "killer bees".

In addition, this type of bee is known for acting like an invader. Their swarms attack the hives of the common honey bee, invading them and installing their queen. They attack in large colonies and are ready to destroy anyone who encroaches on their uterus.

Although the flea is not usually perceived as dangerous, fleas transmit numerous diseases between animals and humans. Throughout history, they have contributed to the spread of many diseases, such as the bubonic plague.

21. Fire Ants

Fire ants are several related ants from the Solenopsis saevissima species-group of the Solenopsis genus, which have a strong sting and poison, whose effect is similar to a flame burn (hence their name). More often under this name appears the invasive red fire ant, which has spread throughout the world. There are known cases of human sting by one ant with serious consequences, anaphylactic shock, up to death.

22. Brown recluse

The second spider on our list, the brown recluse, doesn't release neurotoxins like the black widow. Its bite destroys tissue and can cause lesions that take months to heal.

The bite very often goes unnoticed, but in most cases the sensations are similar to those of a needle prick. Then within 2-8 hours the pain makes itself felt. Further, the situation develops depending on the amount of poison that has entered the bloodstream. The venom of the brown recluse spider is hemolytic, which means it causes necrosis and tissue destruction. A bite for young children, the elderly and sick people can be fatal.

23. Siafu Ants

Siafu (Dorylus) - These army ants are mainly found in East and Central Africa, but have also been found already in tropical Asia. Insects live in colonies that can number up to 20 million individuals, all of which are blind. They make their travels with the help of pheromones. The colony has no permanent place residence, moving from place to place. In the course of movement to feed the larvae, insects attack all invertebrates.

Among these ants there is a special group - soldiers. It is they who can sting, for which they use their hook-shaped jaws, and the size of such individuals reaches 13 mm. The jaws of the soldiers are so strong that in some places in Africa they are even used to secure the seams. The wound may be closed for as long as 4 days. Usually, after a Siafu bite, the consequences are minimal, you don’t even need to call a doctor. However, it is believed that young and old people are especially sensitive to the bites of such ants, and deaths from complications after contact have been observed. As a result, annually, according to statistics, from 20 to 50 people die from these insects. This is facilitated by their aggressiveness, especially when protecting their colony, which a person can accidentally attack.

24. Giant Asian Shemale

Many of us have seen bumblebees - they seem to be quite small, and there is little reason to be afraid of them. Now imagine a bumblebee that has grown up as if on steroids, or just look at the Asian giant. These hornets are the largest in the world - their length can reach 5 cm, and their wingspan is 7.5 centimeters. The length of the sting in such insects can be up to 6 mm, but neither a bee nor a wasp can compare with such a bite, and bumblebees can also sting repeatedly. Such dangerous insects cannot be found in Europe or the USA, but traveling around East Asia and the mountains of Japan, you can meet them. To understand the consequences of a bite, it is enough to listen to eyewitnesses. They compare the sensation of a bumblebee's sting to a red-hot nail driven into the leg.

Poison sting has 8 various compounds, which cause discomfort, damaging soft tissues and creating a scent that can attract new bumblebees to prey. People who are allergic to bees can die from the reaction, but there are cases of death due to the poison mandorotoxin, which can be dangerous if it gets deep enough into the body. It is believed that about 70 people die from such bites every year. Curiously, the sting is not the main hunting tool of bumblebees - they crush their enemies with large jaws.

25. Tsetse fly

The tsetse fly lives in tropical and subtropical Africa, having chosen the Kalahari and Sahara deserts. Flies are carriers of trypanosomiasis, which cause sleeping sickness in animals and humans. Tsetse are anatomically very similar to their ordinary relatives - they can be distinguished by a proboscis on the front of the head and a special manner of folding wings. It is the proboscis that allows you to get the main food - the blood of wild African mammals. On this mainland, there are 21 species of such flies, which can reach a length of 9 to 14 mm.

You should not consider flies so harmless to humans, because they really kill people, doing it quite often. It is believed that in Africa up to 500 thousand people are infected with sleeping sickness, carried by this particular insect. The disease disrupts the activity of the endocrine and cardiac systems. Then amazed nervous system causing mental confusion and sleep disturbance. Attacks of fatigue are replaced by hyperactivity.

The last major epidemic was recorded in Uganda in 2008, in general, the disease is on the list of forgotten in WHO. However, in Uganda alone, 200,000 people have died from sleeping sickness in the last 6 years. It is believed that this disease is largely to blame for the deterioration of the economic situation in Africa. It is curious that flies attack any warm object, even a car, but they do not attack a zebra, considering it only a flash of stripes. Tsetse flies have also saved Africa from soil erosion and overgrazing caused by cattle.

Man came up with different methods of dealing with these insects. In the 1930s, all wild pigs were destroyed on the west coast, but this gave a result only for 20 years. Now they fight by shooting wild animals, cutting down bushes and treating male flies with radiation in order to deprive them of the opportunity to reproduce.

There are not so many ants dangerous to humans in the world. But, as with other animals, human fear has really big eyes: frightening stories about killer ants have become real legends among those who like to tickle their nerves on the couch under the covers.

However, dangerous ants do exist. In strict scientific language, they, of course, are not called "killer ants", biologists call them differently:

• army ants from both the Black Continent and South America

  

• the so-called bullet ant, the soreness of the bite of which exceeds that of a moderate chemical burn

  

• Australian bulldog ants, whose bite can be fatal to a sensitive person

  

• fiery, so named precisely for its ability to sting very painfully.

  

On a note

For individuals with a very severe allergic reaction to insect stings, each of the above ants can be a killer. Moreover, isolated cases of suffocation and fatal intoxication of a person from the bite of just one ordinary red ant are known! Of course, these are exceptional incidents, and because of them it is incorrect to call all ants deadly dangerous.

Those species that knowledgeable people are really afraid of should be discussed in more detail.

Army ants (siafu)

“Every living thing that got in the way of the column or in the zone where the soldiers entered was immediately destroyed. With powerful curved jaws, the soldiers grabbed beetles, caterpillars, spiders, worms, other ants, larvae, wood lice, tore them up and carried them into the column. If a larger prey came across - a lizard, a snake, a mouse or a bird that could not fly, the ants piled on in a black moving mass, and very soon the animal ceased to exist ...

... The ants have passed, leaving only the bones of the rats trying to escape and the chickens forgotten in the barn ... "

A. Tambiev, Living Ways of the Planet

The specificity of these ants lies in the fact that they do not have an anthill, but they breed in temporary bivouacs formed by the worker ants themselves, grabbing each other with their jaws. Such a bivouac has the shape of a ball and seems completely chaotic, but in fact a clear order reigns in it. For part of their life, a colony of such ants wanders in search of food, for which they got their name.

Soldier ants of all types of nomadic ants look intimidating: their jaws are larger than the head itself, and the insects themselves are very large - an ant-soldier has up to one and a half centimeters in length. But the female of the African nomadic ants is really huge: with a body length of up to 5 cm in the oviposition phase, she is the largest of the currently known ants.

It is interesting

Female army ants also set another kind of record: during breeding seasons, they can lay up to 130,000 eggs daily. Such fertility is not observed in any other insect.

African killer ants are actually not. The danger of army ants is generally greatly exaggerated. Their bites are indeed extremely painful and can cause severe allergic reactions. Getting into the center of such a colony can lead to serious bites.

However, there are no known cases of human deaths from army ants. Moreover, the basis of the diet of these ants are other insects, and only a very small number of small vertebrates die from them - lizards, frogs, bird chicks.

It is interesting

The biology of some birds is closely related to the life of African nomadic ants (another name is siafu). For example, the diet of the ocellated ant is more than half composed of insects frightened away by a moving colony of these ants. Not surprisingly, these birds accompany colonies of nomadic ants for most of their lives as food sources.

Stray killer ants are nothing more than a figment of the rich imagination of the authors of adventure stories (Russians are no less bloodthirsty and just as actively destroy other insects of comparable size), and stories about devastated villages and skeletons gnawed in a matter of seconds are nothing more than literary exaggeration.

Interesting video: African killer ants attack a male of their own species

These ants got their name for the terrible pain from bites: their venom contains one of the most powerful toxins in the insect world - poneratoxin. Acute pain after an ant bite is felt for at least 24 hours, for which this species has also received the name "ant 24 hours".

Video example: Bullet ant worker catching a grasshopper

On the special Schmidt pain scale, the pain from stings from these ants reaches the highest level of fourth and exceeds that from burns and bites from any other insects.

The bullet ant is one of the largest ants in general: the length of the working individual is 2-2.5 cm, the female is up to 3 cm.

They live in South America, and among some Indian tribes they are used for a terrible ritual of initiation of a man: a sleeve with live ants tied to it is put on the boy's arm.

After such a test, the hands may be paralyzed for several days, lose sensation and turn black.

Interesting video: killer ants in the ritual of initiation of the tester into men

Black bulldog ants

These ants are quite large, but if not for their bites, they would hardly have become particularly famous. According to statistics, in Tasmania, more people die each year from their bites than from shark attacks, poisonous spiders and snakes combined.

The bite of a black bulldog ant causes an acute allergic reaction in humans - more than 3% of those bitten were in a state of anaphylactic shock.

At the same time, it is never possible to predict in advance how the body will react to the bite of this insect: the active substances in it differ from those of other related insects - wasps and bees - and even a person who normally reacts to bee stings can become a victim of these ants.

It is noteworthy that bulldog ants are evolutionarily very primitive. Perhaps this is due to their strong toxicity.

Fire Red Ant

Fire ants are considered the most dangerous ants in general. And not so much because of the strong poison and extremely painful bite, but because of its ability to take root in new conditions, quickly spread around the world and disrupt the stability of many biocenoses.

The original homeland of fire ants is Brazil, but on merchant ships these insects successfully moved to the south of the USA, to Australia and China. Today, they are also diligently fought in the Philippines, Hong Kong and Taiwan, but so far success is on the side of the ants.

When bitten, a fire ant injects poison into the wound with the toxin solenopsin contained in it. According to the Schmidt scale, the pain from the bites of a red fire ant is the same as the pain from a fire burn, which was the reason for the name of the insect. Worldwide, several thousand people are bitten by these insects every year and several deaths from anaphylactic shock: almost all those bitten have an acute allergic reaction.

Suffer from the bites of these insects and animals, both domestic and wild. It is estimated that fire ants cause $5 billion in annual damage to the US budget, including medical and veterinary care costs.

It is interesting

The red fire ant is considered one of the most dangerous invasive insects in the world: it takes root in most places that it enters with a person, and due to its aggressive behavior, it strongly affects the structure of biological populations in places of introduction.

It should be remembered that all ants, regardless of the degree of danger to humans, are necessary for the biocenosis in which they originally live in nature. Almost all ants are excellent fighters against plant pests, and the same stray ants also very effectively clear their paths of movement from any dying and sick animals. Therefore, the concepts of "dangerous" and "harmful" should not be confused, and even especially scary insect should be treated as important participants in interrelated processes in nature.

An interesting video: a spider against a large ant - who wins? ..

The world around us is fraught with many mysteries and surprises. It is so rich in species diversity that common man it is impossible to comprehend all the subtleties of nature. Especially numerous representatives of the animal world are insects.

Nomadic ants - features of insects

Every person in his life met ants. These tiny workers always cause admiration and surprise in people. Their work is organized to the smallest detail. Each inhabitant of the anthill works for the common good. But did you know that there are a huge number of varieties of these insects? And some of them are very dangerous.

African army ants got their name because of their behavior. They do not create their anthill in a certain place, but lead a nomadic lifestyle, migrating in colonies from one area to another.

The movement of the column takes place during the daytime. In 1 hour, ants are able to overcome from 100 to 300 m. The width of the column can reach 15 m. Then it narrows, forming a kind of tail, the length of which can stretch up to 45 m.

Nomadic ants, moving in whole colonies, sweep away everything in their path. These insects are dangerous for both animals and humans. very painful, and can cause an allergic reaction in a person, and this, in turn, can lead to anaphylactic shock and suffocation.

Insect habitats

Nomadic ants are found not only in Africa. The habitat of these insects is the tropics. Therefore, you can see them on the two American continents, in Central and South Asia. Insects like tropical and subtropical climates.

Description of the species

The number of the colony can reach 22 million individuals. The largest is the uterus. Its length during the laying period is 5 cm, which is a record among various kinds of ants. The uterus is capable of producing a huge number of individuals, so the number of the colony does not decrease. Some insects die, but new army ants immediately come to their place.

Craving for migration is observed only in two subspecies:

• Ecitoninae.
• Dorylinae.

In the process of moving, soldier ants are responsible for protection, so they are concentrated on the edges of the column. Inner part occupied by workers who drag the future offspring and food.

Since the movement of the column occurs only in the daytime, at night the ants create a nest of living labor, the diameter of which is about a meter. Insects cling to each other with their paws, forming a secluded place for their queen and her offspring. To create such a nest, about 150 - 700 thousand individuals are involved.

Migration does not last long, only a few days, after which the settled phase begins, which lasts from several weeks to 3 months. During this period, the uterus lays a huge number of eggs (100 - 300 thousand) and by the end of the stay, larvae will appear from them. At the same time, adult individuals - adults - will emerge from the cocoons of the previous offspring.

Insect nutrition

The favorite delicacy of ants are insects such as:

• bee;
• termite.

The nomadic ants of the African continent also feed on carrion, and it does not matter at all whether they eat the corpse of which animal, large or small. Stray insects mercilessly absorb everything that comes their way:

• different types of insects;
• snakes;
• bird nests;
• small invertebrates;
• amphibians.

Ants pierce the victim and inject a dose of toxic, poisonous substance into it. Since the speed of insects is not too high (up to 20 km / h), weak, slow and wounded animals most often become their prey.

Do army ants have enemies?

Oddly enough, but this dangerous insect, like a nomadic ant, there is still an enemy - this is a praying mantis. But the organization of the ant colony is so high that even with such an enemy, insects can easily cope. Seeing the praying mantis, one of the ants rushes to him and bites his jaws, injecting poison. Even if the insect dies, the rest of the individuals, having seen such a signal, group and rebuff the offender. In this case, you will not envy the praying mantis, he is threatened with death.

Because of this collective organization of the column, no one runs the risk of hunting ants.

How long do these insects live?

Few people know that life expectancy reaches 10 - 15 years. Other individuals of the colony live much less, from 2 months to 2 years maximum. Under laboratory conditions, the lifespan of individual insects was 4 years.

Fascinating facts about roaming ants

• Nomadic killer ants, carrying a mortal danger to humanity, are a complete fiction created by the film industry. Of course, insect bites are a big threat to people who are allergic to toxic substances, but not a single case of human death has been recorded. Therefore, calling nomad ants killers would be unfair.
• These insects are excellent orderlies. They clean agricultural plantations from various pests.
• On the African continent, army ants are the most dangerous predators.
• Insects are able to follow in the footsteps of their relatives.
• Ants have no vision at all, but they have a well-developed hearing.
• The queen in the colony has no rights. Her task is to breed new offspring.
• The peoples of Central Africa leave their homes and take their livestock away as soon as there is information that a column of ants is moving in the direction of their settlement.
• If the army ants move in the direction of the prison, then the prisoners who have not committed serious crimes and are not sentenced to death are released for the duration of the insect invasion.

Varieties of dangerous ants

In our regions, we often meet ants, but they do not pose a danger to people, which cannot be said about some varieties living in a tropical climate. There are species that contain aggressive poison. The following are considered dangerous:

1. Siafu are nomadic army ants. Habitat - Australia. Insects have powerful jaws. As with other species of wandering ants, there is no permanent anthill. Insects build a bivouac (temporary dwelling), which consists of the bodies of workers. Bites are dangerous to humans, as they can cause allergies.
2. Bullet ants. These insects have a very strong poison - ponerotoxin. The bite delivers a terrible pain that does not subside during the day. This type of insect is found in the tropics and subtropics of the South American continent. The Indian tribes used these ants for initiation ceremonies. The young man was attached to a bracelet, which was hung with insects. The ants bit the boy, after which his limbs were paralyzed for 2-3 days, and the bites turned black. The worst thing is that the young man must go through this execution 20 times, and only after that he can be considered a real man.
3. Fiery. This species of ants is very dangerous for humans. In one year, about 20 deaths were recorded after a bite that caused a severe allergic reaction. Habitat: Asia, southern Europe and America. Ants easily adapt to environment populating unknown territories. The poison is called solenopsin. The bite feels like the pain of a burn, it provokes the formation of a tumor.
4. A large insect that is very poisonous. Three out of a hundred bitten experienced anaphylactic shock. It is very difficult to predict what the body's reaction to such a poison will be, because it is very different in its own way. chemical composition from toxins contained in the sting of bees and wasps.

Nomadic ants, the description of which was discussed in the article, are really amazing representatives of the animal world. Their organization and well-coordinated work can only be envied.