Black-headed sugar ant

The black-headed sugar ant is a big ant from Australia with a black head and a reddish brown middle. It sleeps in the daytime and goes looking for food at night. It loves anything sweet.

How big is it?
How long is it?
How big is Black-headed sugar ant compared to YOU?
Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
To show a friend the way to food, a worker may carry it, run in a pair with it or leave a smelly trail.
It looks after the caterpillars of some butterflies. At night the caterpillars come out with the ants to eat mistletoe leaves.
The queen is the biggest ant in the nest, about 16 millimetres long.
One nest can hold several thousand ants.
Birds and even fish like to eat these ants.
Most asked questions about Black-headed sugar ant
?Do black-headed sugar ants come into houses?
Sometimes. They search for sweet food at night, so keep food covered.
?What do black-headed sugar ants eat?
Mostly sweet juices and sugar water, and also insects.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Camponotus nigriceps
- Named by
- Smith, 1858
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Brown sugar ant
Where the facts come from
- Black-headed sugar 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 Patrick_K59. CC BY 2.0, 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.
Bug Wiki honey jar For grown-ups: Bug Wiki is free, with no ads and no tracking. A small tip helps keep it online.Leave a tip