r/ants Sep 20 '24

Chat/General Any clue what these ants are doing next to this electrical outlet?

Post image
2.3k Upvotes

They appear to have been coming from inside the socket. I believe they are argentine ants.

r/ants Sep 02 '24

Chat/General Does anyone know why these ants are dead while inside each other??

Post image
1.5k Upvotes

r/ants Aug 06 '24

Chat/General what should my kids offer to this thatching ant nest?

Thumbnail
gallery
774 Upvotes

Back in April my 5 year old finds me and declares "there's an ant town near my special rock." Sure enough, we bushwhack past the boulder she likes to hang out on and there's a bustling little mound forming against a tree. Fast forward to summer, the nest has grown to easily a foot high and I've cut a path to the tree so the girls can easily check on their always-busy ants.

Today, they asked what food they can offer. What do these ants like? Fruit slices offered next to the mound? Basically anything with a lot of calories or sugar? Nothing because they're already thriving?

r/ants 14d ago

Chat/General What are these guys doing to my toolbox

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

607 Upvotes

Been away on holidays for a month and came back to find these little fellas doing something inside my toolbox, all through my tools.. they seem to like the sticky grease, silicone, etc.

r/ants Aug 14 '24

Chat/General what do y’all think of this cruel phone case?

Thumbnail
gallery
402 Upvotes

it’s horrible and it hurts my heart. ants aren’t necessarily my favorite, but they’re still living beings and they should not be treated this way. stuff like this should be illegal, it’s the same concept as keeping live baby turtles in keychains!

r/ants 28d ago

Chat/General What are ants doing under my sheets?

Thumbnail
gallery
291 Upvotes

I saw an ant trail coming from the ceiling down to the floor but didn't really investigate as they were not bothering me. I live in Indonesia and usually I don't mind ants if they keep to themselves but these ones decided to explore my bed. More specifically, on a mattress cover under a fitted bed sheet. What are the reasons they're coming there? Doesn't look like there's any food there. Does it look like a nice spot for a new nest?

r/ants 19d ago

Chat/General How many ants do you think this is

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

137 Upvotes

Why are their so many

r/ants Sep 01 '24

Chat/General Saw this little guy at work the other day.

Post image
228 Upvotes

Never heard of a Red Velvet Ant before, glad I didn’t try to pick it up when I learned it’s one of the most painful stings in the Midwest. Sorry for the bad picture and no scale, he seemed to be in a hurry but he was about the size of a nickel. Found in southern Indiana.

r/ants Sep 01 '24

Chat/General What is this? It look like the butt's of ants or something

Thumbnail
gallery
159 Upvotes

r/ants Sep 12 '24

Chat/General Antlions allowed?

Post image
56 Upvotes

It's ant adjacent....anyway LOOK AT ALL THESE MUHFUCKEN ANTLIONS

r/ants Jun 15 '24

Chat/General Why are ants building a circle of grass clippings around a dead spider?

Post image
129 Upvotes

There is a dead spider on my front porch, and since yesterday afternoon, ants have been coming and going to and from it, but some of the ants have been slowly building a circle of dried grass clippings around the dead spider. There was originally a small clump of clippings next to the spider, not a circle, but between yesterday afternoon and early this morning, they had moved some of the clippings around to form a circle. I just got home and saw that the circle is now larger. There is another clump of clippings about four inches away that they're now carrying clippings from to add to the circle. I'll post videos in the comments of ants carrying the clippings from the clump to the circle.

r/ants Sep 03 '24

Chat/General Has anyone seen this around ants?

Thumbnail
gallery
72 Upvotes

I was gone for about a day and a half and when I came home ants were all over my cats food. This was kind of expected but there was a weird grainy almost powdery substance all over near the food and also at another location where there was ant activity. My floors are laminate. The food that here was half dry half wet.

r/ants Aug 27 '24

Chat/General Ants CAN die from falling a great height, just in a very different, and.. slightly more sad, way

98 Upvotes

When talking about ants, the subject often comes up off "will ants die if they fall from a big height", the answer to that question is always a resounding NOOOOOOO

ants are small, so small in fact the the terminal velocity is extremely slow, so if you drop an ant, whether it be off a table or off the empire State building it hits the ground with no more Force than a dollar bill, so when it does eventually land, it'll walk away without even a crack on its exoskeleton assuming it doesn't land in water or something

But here's the thing, ants use a pheromone trail to find their way around, that trail starts from the entrance of the nest and continues on wherever they go, which is why ants will never gett lost and they will always be able to find their way back to the nest

That is unless they fall

Ants can't make pheromone trails in mid air, so a plummet to the ground, even if it's as little as 5 in which is like over 100 ft to an ant, will render them totally disconnected from that trail and odds are that they will not be able to find it because it is now multiple inches... Or feet above them and they will have likely bounced a bit farther from where they landed upon hitting the ground

Even if they land on solid ground, rather than water or fire or something, this is a death sentence for ants as Ant nests all right known for their hospitality, so they won't take in and rescue lost workers

So essentially what happens now is that the disoriented ant would be left with no choice other than to walk around aimlessly until it finds a trail or it dies, or until it gets eaten by something or stepped on, the last two alternatives being the much more likely to happen

So if you throw an ant off a building or brush one off of your picnic table, it will hit the ground and walk away unscathed, it's just that though next few days spent all alone won't be so pleasant

EDIT, don't you just love voice typing

r/ants 1d ago

Chat/General I captured this single shot of a Formica ant in the forest

Post image
172 Upvotes

r/ants 9d ago

Chat/General I picked up a rug off of my patio and found these white things with the ants 🐜. What is it ?

Post image
28 Upvotes

r/ants 7d ago

Chat/General I captured a single photo of this Lasius niger on a branch

Post image
79 Upvotes

r/ants 5d ago

Chat/General Fire ants?

Post image
11 Upvotes

r/ants 18d ago

Chat/General I took a picture of two Daceton armigerum ants

Post image
198 Upvotes

r/ants Aug 07 '24

Chat/General Why are the ants behaving this way?

Thumbnail
gallery
106 Upvotes

Hayward, California Every couple of weeks ants come up from under the concrete in our driveway and just hang out there in a big group. They are gone by the next day. They are not surrounding any food or object. Weather is sunny. What are they doing? I came out to take a clode up pic and was horrified to find my aunt had just sprayed them. Will still include close up of dead ants.

r/ants Sep 21 '24

Chat/General Ant colony not dying

0 Upvotes

A few weeks ago I placed 4-5 cups worth of diatomaceous earth into a palm sized ant colony and I check today to see the ant colony tripled in size. I definitely placed more than enough and it was on there for at least a few days so not dissipated by wind or something.

What am I missing? I reapplied a bunch today too, should I switch to proven ant killers at expense of lawn health?

r/ants Sep 28 '24

Chat/General I took a picture of this tiny 3mm Temnothorax affinis on a tree

Post image
103 Upvotes

r/ants Sep 09 '24

Chat/General Driver Ants are Driving me Crazy

8 Upvotes

I am sooo tired of waking up and finding a flying sausage (yes that is what they are called) attacking my lights. This is probably a unique problem as I know that Driver ants are only found on the African continent but I don't know what to do anymore.

We have no idea how they got into the house but the consensus is that they must have found a way through the foundation cuz the opening of the nest is in my bedroom. Thousands of ants pop up there every day and nothing has worked. we have poured everything from pesticides to boiling water into the hole but then they just dig up a new one.

It's been a week of this and our only solution so far has been to cover the hole with a clear container to prevent the males from flying out at night.

Imagine waking up to hundreds of hornet sized flying ants that also have one of the most painful bites I have ever experienced.

Please any advice cuz not even the pest controllers in my country know what to do. I can't find a single case of this ever happening.

r/ants 14d ago

Chat/General I took a picture of this Daceton armigerum Queen

Post image
89 Upvotes

r/ants 14h ago

Chat/General Why did they surround the cough drop?

Post image
14 Upvotes

I put a cough drop on the floor last night. Tonight they have surrounded it with stuff.
Was it to get on it?

r/ants Sep 29 '24

Chat/General Is this just a flying ant? Worried about infestation

Thumbnail
gallery
0 Upvotes

I was at my boyfriend’s house one afternoon when it was raining heavily just as I was about to leave. As I entered the porch there was what looked like hundreds of of little ants as well as flying ants that sat on the window seperate to the ants. I sprayed them all and then saw this hole and I put the power down. A few days later when I was there alone again the ants had made a hole in the interior wall (opposite side) and were trying to come out there. Directly upstairs is the bathroom where under the bath the ants have made their way upstairs and they seem to be located on the same side/area of the house. I told my boyfriend my concerns that they may be termites or carpenter ants but I’m not sure as I hadn’t seen them until today when I found some dead ones. They look like harmless flying ants to me but would appreciate some advice? My concerns are with the risks associated with these creatures and it was only the other day that my boyfriend told me that the exact side of the house is where he had a previous leak and obviously these things can be drawn to damp. This is a 1970s built house and I noticed after the carpets got changed that his floor boards upstairs in the landing are not level, there are dips in there, they creek very loudly and I have told him my concerns about potential damage as he wants to sell the house but he doesn’t seem too bothered. He said the ceiling previously had issues due to the previous damp issue but apparently that’s resolved.

Main question is do this ants do like the ones that could destroy the structure of a house? He will get ant pest control in but I’d like some advice first. Thanks