Ant kingdom
Structures of ants
Winged ants
Marriage flight
Ant Kingdom from a queen
Egg-laying by a queen
Ants are strong
Procession of ants
Ants like sweets
Ants raising insects
Slave-making ants
A fight of ants
Ant lion
Hibernation of ants
How to raise ants

Contents
index

Ants are very fond of sweets!

Ants usually swarm around sugar or sweets, but rarely crowd around salty food.

Do ants eat only sweets? Or, do they eat food that is not sweet?

Ants of the Lasius japonicus species swarming around a melted candy: Ants are very fond of sweets.

Ants are very fond of sweets, and have a keen sense of smell of honeydew and sugar. However, they do not eat sweets exclusively.

While sweets supply energy for various activities of ants, food materials such as dead insects and plant seeds are also essential for ants as the nutritional sources of the components of their body structures.

When workers find pieces of solid food, they carry them back to the nest. On the other hand, when they find sweet liquid food such as honeydew, they store the liquid in the crop in their abdomen and walk back to the nest. When they reach the nest, they feed the liquid food in drops directly from their mouth to the mouth of other members of the nest.

Ants serve as living storage tanks

In the nests of honey pot ants, which live in Central America, there are special workers whose crops have turned into living storage tanks for honeydew.

Normal workers of the species collect honeydew and pump it into the living storage tanks until their abdomens are distended to many times the normal diameter. The tanks hang from the ceiling of the nest, and by the time they have distended to the maximum size possible, each has become a strange potbellied creature, which looks like a grape with a head and legs.

A distended honey pot ant storing honeydew in its crop