Western harvester ant
The western harvester ant is a dark red ant that collects seeds, like a farmer bringing in the harvest. It builds a big gravel mound on top of its nest. Around the mound it clears away all the plants, so you can spot the bare circle from far away.
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Fun facts
A queen can live up to 30 years, and many colonies last 20 years.
One colony can have up to 20000 workers and just one queen.
The nest can go 5 metres deep underground, and the queen lives at the very bottom.
Because the mound has no plants around it, grass fires pass by without burning it.
Young workers stay home, and only older workers go out to collect food.
Most asked questions about Western harvester ant
?What do western harvester ants eat?
Mostly seeds and pollen, and sometimes freshly dead insects.
?How big is a western harvester ant?
A worker is about 6 millimetres long.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Pogonomyrmex occidentalis
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Pogonomyrmex occidentalis (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 AntWeb.org. CC BY 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.
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