Florida trap-jaw ant
The Florida trap-jaw ant has long, straight jaws that it can open wide, all the way flat. When tiny hairs inside its jaws are touched, the jaws snap shut faster than you can blink.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its jaws snap shut at up to 230 kilometres an hour. They are the fastest-moving hunting body parts measured in any animal.
It can use its jaws like a spring to fling itself backwards and escape danger.
It can also use its jaws to throw unwanted visitors out of its nest.
It uses the same jaws gently and slowly to build the nest and look after the babies.
The ants raise new babies only in the first half of the year.
Most asked questions about Florida trap-jaw ant
?How fast are the jaws of a trap-jaw ant?
They can snap shut at up to 230 km/h, the fastest of any animal ever measured.
?Where does the Florida trap-jaw ant live?
In the south-eastern United States, Central America and the Caribbean islands.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Odontomachus brunneus
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Odontomachus brunneus (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 Nathan Burkett-Cadena. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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