Bug card No. 1333 of 1,500

Tawny crazy ant

Nylanderia fulva

Name means: “crazy because it runs around in quick, zigzag ways. Rasberry is after Tom Rasberry, a pest controller in Texas who noticed it”

Eats: A bit of everything AntsGardens and meadows6 legs

The tawny crazy ant is a small reddish brown ant covered in fine hairs. It gets its name from the way it rushes about in wild zigzags. It has an amazing secret weapon against fire ants.

Lives in

South America, and now the warm Gulf Coast of the United States

Length

3 mm (0.12 in)

about

Top speed

about 0.23 km/h (0.14 mph)

On foot, estimate

Can it hurt you?

Can bite or sting

Many ants can sting or bite! Read about ant venom on Venom Wiki →

What does it eat?

It eats small insects, looks for sweet food on plants and drinks the sugary juice that aphids make.

Photo of Tawny crazy ant — Picture by Bentleypkt. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

small enough to sit on your fingernailcould run across a dinner table in 16 secondsmoves 21 times its own body length every second

How big is Tawny crazy ant compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

How fast is it?

A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)

Tawny crazy ant about 0.23 km/h (0.14 mph)

A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)

A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)

cool stuff

Fun facts

Its nests have many queens and no anthills. They live under stones and piles of stuff.

Ant acid, called formic acid, is named after the Latin word for ant.

Where it spreads, it can push out almost all other kinds of ants, even fire ants.

you asked

Most asked questions about Tawny crazy ant

?Why is it called a crazy ant?

Because it runs around in fast, unpredictable zigzags.

?How big is a tawny crazy ant?

About 3 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name: Nylanderia fulva
Group: Ants
Family: Formicidae
Classification: Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
Lives on: South America, North America
Also known as: Rasberry crazy ant

Where the facts come from

Rasberry crazy ant (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 Bentleypkt. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.