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Sticker of Tawny-legged jack jumper ant
Bug card No. 4307 of 4,939

Tawny-legged jack jumper ant

Myrmecia fulvipes
Eats: A bit of everythingAntsForests and woods6 legs

This big Australian ant is a kind of bull ant. Its body is black, its legs are orange and its back end shines gold. It can jump short distances, which is quite a trick for an ant.

Lives in
Eastern Australia, from Tasmania to Queensland
Length
0.9 to 1.3 cm (0.35 to 0.51 in)
Top speed
about 0.48 km/h (0.3 mph)
On foot, estimate
What does it eat?
The grown-up ants drink sweet honey water. They catch insects to feed their babies.
For real!Photo of Tawny-legged jack jumper ant
Picture by Zach Lieberman. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Tawny-legged jack jumper ant about 1.3 cm long (0.51 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)
as long as 2 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 7.5 seconds

How big is Tawny-legged jack jumper ant compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

It jumps short distances to run away from danger or to leap at its target.

2

It looks a lot like its famous cousin, the jack jumper ant.

3

Queens are bigger than the workers and can be 14 to 16 millimetres long.

4

It lives in Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

you asked

Most asked questions about Tawny-legged jack jumper ant

?Can this ant really jump?

Yes. It can jump short distances, to escape or to attack.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Myrmecia fulvipes
Group
Ants
Family
Formicidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania

Where the facts come from

  1. Myrmecia fulvipes (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by Zach Lieberman. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this 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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More from the same group: Ants

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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