Rich spiny sugar ant
Polyrhachis dives
The rich spiny sugar ant is a spiny ant from southern Asia and northern Australia. It builds its nests up in bushes and trees by sewing leaves together. Its sewing thread is silk made by its own babies.
Lives in
Southern Asia, Japan's Okinawa island and northern Australia, in open woodlands, swampy coasts and farmland
What does it eat?
Like other spiny ants, it eats sweet things and small insects.
How fast is it?
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Rich spiny sugar ant about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
One nest can have many queens.
2
One colony often has lots of nests spread between the branches and leaves of bushes.
3
On the island of Okinawa it has recently become much more common in the north, and nobody knows why.
4
A special fungus and some tiny wasps attack these ants.
you asked
Most asked questions about Rich spiny sugar ant
?How does the spiny sugar ant build its nest?
It stitches leaves together with silk made by its larvae.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Polyrhachis dives
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Polyrhachis dives (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 portioid. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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