Ant meals


Camponotus japonicus sucking the sap from a Japanese oak tree. Together with weevils, flies and nitidulids.

Sharing honey with a fellow ant by mouth-to-mouth transfer

12 An ant with honey stored in its crop regurgitates the sweet honey when its mandible is tapped by the antenna of a fellow ant. The recipient ant is given a drop of honey via mouth-to-mouth transfer.


A Camponotus japonicus ant sharing honey with another hungry ant
Ants have 2 stomachs


The ant has 2 stomachs. The anterior stomach is called the crop and serves as a sac for storing honey for fellow ants. There is a valve behind the crop, from which the ant's true stomach starts.

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