Southern ant
The southern ant is a small ant that lives only in New Zealand and a few faraway islands. It can be orange, brown or black, depending on its colony. It is a clever little farmer that keeps tiny bugs for their sweet juice.
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Fun facts
It keeps mealybugs, tiny sap-sucking bugs, like a farmer keeps cows. It strokes them with its feelers to get their sweet juice.
When the nest is disturbed, the ants carry their mealybugs deeper inside to keep them safe.
When it rains, workers carry the babies from their rooms into safer tunnels, and bring them back when the rain stops.
On warm, sunny days the winged ants fly out in swarms so big you can hear them hum.
It gathers lots of plant seeds and stores them in and around its nest.
Most asked questions about Southern ant
?Where does the southern ant live?
In New Zealand and some nearby islands, in forests, grasslands and gardens.
?What does the southern ant eat?
Small insects, seeds and the sweet juice from mealybugs that it looks after.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Chelaner antarcticus
- Named by
- Smith, 1858
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
Where the facts come from
- Chelaner antarcticus (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 (c) Tony Wills, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA). CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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