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Sticker of Copper-bellied ant
Bug card No. 1198 of 4,939

Copper-bellied ant

Ochetellus glaber
Eats: A bit of everythingAntsHouses and farms6 legs

The copper-bellied ant is a tiny brown to black ant from Australia. It often marches in long lines from trees to find food. Sometimes it sneaks into houses and helps itself to kitchen food.

Lives in
Australia, and now also parts of Asia, New Zealand and the United States
Length
2 to 3 mm (0.08 to 0.12 in)
Top speed
about 0.23 km/h (0.14 mph)
On foot, estimate
What does it eat?
It eats sweet honeydew made by aphids and mealybugs, small insects, and food it finds in people's kitchens.
For real!Photo of Copper-bellied ant
Picture by AntWeb.org. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Copper-bellied ant about 3 mm long (0.12 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)
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 Copper-bellied ant compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

The workers are only 2 to 3 millimetres long, while the queens are about twice as long.

2

The males are the smallest of all, at less than 2 millimetres.

3

It is busy both in the day and at night.

4

It looks after aphids and mealybugs, which give it sweet honeydew in return.

5

It builds nests under stones, in old logs and hollow trees, and sometimes inside walls and ceilings.

you asked

Most asked questions about Copper-bellied ant

?What does the copper-bellied ant eat?

Sweet honeydew from aphids and mealybugs, small insects, and food it finds in houses.

?How big is the copper-bellied ant?

The workers are just 2 to 3 millimetres long.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Ochetellus glaber
Named by
Mayr, 1862
Group
Ants
Family
Formicidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
Lives on
Australia and Oceania, Asia, North America
Also known as
Black household ant, Black house ant, Tramp ant

Where the facts come from

  1. Ochetellus glaber (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 AntWeb.org. 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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