Hairy carpenter ant
The hairy carpenter ant is a big, shiny black ant covered in long, thick hairs. Some workers are much bigger than others. The big ones are guards, and they keep the smaller workers safe when they go out looking for food.
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Fun facts
Its big guard workers have jaws strong enough to cut up small insects.
It usually builds its nest in dead wood, but sometimes under stones.
A nest usually has 1000 to 4000 workers, and big ones can have up to 10000.
In Dutch it is called the black giant ant.
It likes dry, open forests and the sunny edges of woods.
Most asked questions about Hairy carpenter ant
?Where do hairy carpenter ants nest?
Mostly in dead wood, and sometimes under stones, in dry open forests and at forest edges.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Camponotus vagus
- Named by
- Scopoli, 1763
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- Europe, Asia, Africa
Where the facts come from
- Camponotus vagus (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 April Nobile. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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