Black cocktail ant
The black cocktail ant is a small, shiny black ant from southern Africa with a heart-shaped bottom. When it gets upset, it lifts its bottom up high in the air. It lives in trees and bushes and builds amazing round nests out of chewed-up plants.
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Fun facts
It makes round nests 10 to 30 centimetres across from chewed plants, a lot like papier-mache. Inside, the nest looks like a sponge.
It also likes to live in old protea flowers, hollow branches and under tree bark.
It leaves a trail of smelly footprints with its back legs, so other ants can follow the way to food.
It looks after the caterpillars of some butterflies and even builds paper shelters for them.
Most asked questions about Black cocktail ant
?Why is it called the cocktail ant?
Because it is black and cocks its tail, lifting its bottom high in the air, when it is alarmed.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Crematogaster peringueyi
- Named by
- Emery, 1895
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- Africa
Where the facts come from
- Crematogaster peringueyi (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by Peter Slingsby of Slingsby's Ants. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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