Ants, those ubiquitous insects found scurrying across sidewalks and infiltrating picnics, exhibit a remarkable diversity in their dietary habits. With approximately 10,000 species inhabiting the Earth, ants have adapted to consume a wide array of food sources, playing various roles in different ecosystems. Understanding the diet of ants is crucial not only for comprehending their ecological significance but also for effective pest control.
General Feeding Habits
Most ants are opportunistic feeders, meaning they'll eat just about anything. This includes other ants, dead insects, parts of dead animals, grains, fruits, and vegetables. Many ant species are opportunistic omnivores and consume plant-based foods, such as nectar, resins, and saps, as well as animal-based foods, including live prey and scavenged carcasses, as they encounter them. The stilt-legged Sahara desert ants, for example, commonly scavenge dead insects in the extreme heat of their harsh habitat. Others are more dominantly carnivorous hunters. These include bullet ants, known for their extremely painful bites, and driver ants, which move en masse to overwhelm unfortunate living prey such as insects, spiders, frogs, and other small animals. Some ants even steal and eat the eggs and larvae of other ants.
Dietary Preferences of Different Ant Species
While the general diet of ants is broad, specific species have evolved to specialize in certain food sources. Here's a closer look at the dietary preferences of some common ant species:
- Black Ants: Often seen marching in a line, black ants primarily feed on sugary substances.
- Fire Ants: Fire ants have a more protein-rich diet. They are known for consuming dead insects, small vertebrates, and even other ant species in some cases.
- Argentine Ants: Argentine ants have a diverse diet that includes sweets, oils, and fats. These ants eat a variety of foods, such as sugary substances, dead insects, and even small animals.
- Leaf Cutter Ants: Leaf cutter ants are unique in that they don't eat the leaves they famously carry. Instead, these worker ants use leaves to cultivate a special kind of fungus, which is their primary food source.
- Carpenter Ants: Contrary to popular belief, carpenter ants do not eat wood. They chew through wood to create nests but primarily feed on proteins and sugars, including other insects and honeydew.
- Harvester Ants: Harvester ants primarily feed on seeds, playing a crucial role in seed dispersal and ecosystem balance.
- Odorous Ants: Odorous ants, known for the unpleasant smell they release when crushed, prefer a diet of honeydew and other sweet substances.
- Ghost Ants: Ghost ants, named for their translucent bodies, have an eclectic diet. These ants eat sweets, particularly honeydew and sugar water, but also consume dead and live insects.
- Pavement Ants: Pavement ants, commonly found under sidewalks and building foundations, have a versatile diet. They are especially known for foraging on scraps and food particles in urban settings.
- Sugar Ants: Sugar ants, a term often used for various species attracted to sweet substances, are particularly fond of nectar, honeydew, and sugary household food.
- Thief Ants: Thief ants, one of the smallest species, are known for their sneaky behavior. Their diet also includes oils, proteins, and occasionally sweets.
Larval Diet
Ant larvae have a different diet compared to adult ants. Worker ants often feed them with insect eggs, small insects, and nutritional secretions from the queen.
Ants and Honeydew
Herder ants carefully manage and protect herds of aphids to collect honeydew, a sugary secretion produced by the sap-sucking insects. Several ant species, known as honey ants, have specialized workers that store honeydew in their distended abdomens until needed by the colony in times of food scarcity.
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What Attracts Ants
Like many other pests, ants are driven by their need for food. Staying on top of cleaning and food storage practices is one of the most important ways to keep ants from taking over your home and yard. If you know what food attracts ants, you can work to stay one step ahead of them by eliminating the substances they’re looking for. Once you understand what ants eat, ant control can get a whole lot easier.
Ants are opportunistic omnivores, which means they will eat almost anything. They require a mix of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats in their diet to thrive. A typical ant diet may include:
- Organic matter: Leaves, fungus, nectar, fruits, vegetables
- Sugary substances: Honey, syrup, candy. Ants are not attracted to artificial sweeteners like stevia and aspartame.
- Animal products: Eggs, cheese, dairy, meat, and parts of dead animals they find in the wild
- Other insects and insect eggs: Spiders, beetles, other ants
If they are living outdoors, ants will stick to organic matter like vegetation and food they find around garbage bins and some species will also feed from the sweet honeydew produced by other insects. Indoors, they’ll mostly head towards kitchens and dining rooms where food is plentiful. Since ants are so small, the tiniest crumb can look like a feast to them, and when one ant shows up, more are sure to follow.
How Ants Find Food
Ants have a strong sense of smell that leads them to their next meal. They have four to five times more odor receptors than most other insects, so they can detect a potential food source from far away. Ants use their antennae to sniff out food and leave a pheromone trail as a guide for other ants to follow in their footsteps. Carpenter ants use a combination of pheromones and visual memory to find food. They’ll memorize and use the same path over and over to access a reliable food source. If ants are in your home, it’s most likely because they were attracted to a food or water source.
How Ants Eat
Worker ants-the ones that leave the nest-are food scavengers. They search for food both for themselves and for other ants. When they find a food source, their job is to bring some back to the colony for the rest of the ants, including the queen and the larvae. Adult ants feed solid food to the larvae, who then chew it up and feed the resulting liquid back to the workers. The workers can eat liquid foods, which they will share with nestmates.
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Ant Prevention
Preventing ants in your home starts with sealing up any potential entry points, such as cracks in windows, doors, and the foundation. Next, keep up with regular cleaning around the house, especially in the kitchen, to eliminate any crumbs or spills that might attract ants. Store food in airtight containers, clean pet food bowls daily, and don’t forget to clean areas like under the sink and beneath appliances. To prevent ants in your yard, keep your lawn mowed and watered to eliminate the conditions ants look for. Maintaining the outside of your house and the surrounding yard can help ensure ant populations aren’t close enough to make their way inside your home.
Entomophagy: Ants as Food for Humans
While entomophagy - eating insects - may sound new or unusual to some in the West, it has been commonplace in cultures worldwide for centuries. For example, many people in Asia, Africa, and Latin America depend on insects as part of their diets. In some cases, insects are even considered delicacies rather than just another source of vital nutrients.
The most commonly consumed insects around the world are beetles, caterpillars, bees, wasps, and ants. Ants specifically offer an environmentally friendly source of quality protein that may support heart health and combat oxidative stress.
Cultural practices strongly influence who eats insects, and while most Western countries refrain from it, insects are an important food source in many regions of the world.
As you can imagine, there are numerous ant species, and not all of them tend to be consumed.
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Here are some of the most popular edible ants and the countries in which they are eaten:
- Leaf-cutting ants: Leaf-cutting ants are especially popular in Latin American countries, including Mexico, Colombia, Panama, and Brazil. Their name comes from their ability to cut leaves to feed fungi, which they use to feed their larvae.
- Weaver ants: Weaver ants are consumed in China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cameroon, Bangladesh, India, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. They’re called weaver ants because they weave the leaves of living trees with silk to form their nests.
- Honey ants: Honey ants are commonly consumed by Indigenous communities in Australia. They’re also called honeypot ants because they use their stomachs to store honey to feed their colony in times of scarcity.
- Black ants: Black ants are typically consumed in China and Kenya.
Generally, ants can be eaten in larvae or adult form. They may be consumed whole or as an ingredient in various dishes. Preparation techniques vary by country and by ant species. For example, the larvae and eggs of weaver ants are preferred over the adults, since adult ants have less flavor. However, adults are still used as a condiment.
Here are some other examples of how ants are prepared around the world:
- Laos: Weaver ants are used to add acidity to fish soups, similarly to how citrus is used in Western countries.
- Thailand: Weaver ants are sold in cans.
- Peruvian Amazon: Weaver ants are typically roasted or fried. The larvae are commonly roasted and mixed with cassava flour.
- Colombia: Leaf-cutting ant queens are sold fried at local markets.
- Mexico: Leaf-cutting ants are usually roasted and ground to flavor mayonnaise and prepare sauces.
- India: Weaver ants’ eggs and larvae are boiled with spices, and adult ants are prepared as chutney mixed with chili and salt.
Nutritional Value of Edible Ants
The nutritional value of insects - including ants - varies widely depending on the species. It is also influenced by their metamorphic stage, diet, and habitat. Nevertheless, ants tend to be high in protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals.
For instance, weaver ants’ larvae and eggs provide around 7 grams of protein per 100 grams in weight. In contrast, adult leaf-cutting ants and black ants contain an average of 42-53 grams and 40-45 grams of protein per 100 grams, respectively.
In addition, ants provide fiber and minerals, such as iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus. The most common type of fiber in insects is chitin, which is derived from their external skeleton. It is insoluble fiber - the kind your body cannot digest.
Benefits of Eating Ants
The benefits of eating ants come mainly from their low environmental impact and high protein quality. They may also offer antioxidants and support heart health.
Traditional uses for ants vary by region and culture. They may be used to treat asthma and sore throats, or their heads may be used as stitches to close wounds.
As edible insects, ants may become part of the emerging trends focused on providing healthier and more sustainable diets. Insects in general are considered a sustainable food source due to their low environmental impact.
For starters, they tend to have a high feed conversion efficiency, which refers to an animal’s capacity to convert feed mass into increased body mass. This means they need fewer kilograms of feed for every kilogram of weight gain compared with other protein sources. For example, crickets need 12 times less feed than cattle and 4 times less feed than sheep.
In addition, insects help reduce environmental contamination. They’re very efficient at bioconverting organic waste - meaning they can convert animal or plant waste into an energy source. Insects are also credited with the following environmental benefits:
- They emit little ammonia and few greenhouse gases.
- They have reduced water needs compared to cattle.
- They’re believed to present fewer animal welfare issues.
- They have a lower risk of transmitting infections to humans than mammals and birds do.
Because ants are efficient and less taxing on the environment, including ants as a protein source may help reduce usage of other limited natural resources, such as land, energy, and water. Even so, the sustainability of ants depends on good collection practices. Unsustainable collection methods may become detrimental to their natural environment.
Rapid population growth around the world has increased the global demand for meat, but many consider current models of meat production unsustainable. Therefore, alternative animal protein sources may help reduce pressure on the environment. Ants are an animal-based protein source that may help increase dietary quality and overall protein intake.
Insects’ high protein content has raised interest as an alternative to milk, meat, fish, and eggs for human consumption. In fact, in countries where entomophagy is a common practice, insects are a valued source of protein.
Antioxidant-rich foods are key for preventing oxidative stress-related diseases such as heart disease and cancer. One study determined that black ants have high levels of antioxidants - namely polyphenols - comparable to those in orange juice. In terms of heart health, one 2-week study in healthy adults determined that a daily intake of 3-6 grams of chitin reduced total cholesterol and increased HDL (good) cholesterol levels.
Potential Downsides of Eating Ants
Due to the lack of human studies on eating ants, there is little scientific evidence regarding their potential downsides. For instance, some research suggests that chitin may be a potential food allergen, while other studies imply that it may actually improve some people’s immune responses. Additionally, research suggests that ants may be a source of purines - compounds found in proteins - and increase uric acid production, which may be harmful to people with gout.
Generally, edible ant species are safe to eat, posing no more risks than other animal products. Processing and storage should follow the same health and sanitization regulations as any other food, including thorough washing and heating when cooking.
That being said, there are a couple of considerations to keep in mind when consuming ants. On one hand, consuming whole ants means you’d also consume their microbiota, or gut bacteria, which may lead to parasite ingestion. Specifically, the parasite Dicrocoelium dendriticum may infect humans who eat ants that contain metacercariae. However, cases of dicrocoeliosis - the infection caused by the parasite - are very rare.
On the other hand, not all ants are edible. Some ants, such as fire and jack jumper ants, have organs that produce poison. While the poison is usually deactivated in your digestive tract, there’s a risk of stings in your mouth or esophagus, which may cause fatal allergic reactions.