Bicolored pyramid ant
Dorymyrmex bicolor
The bicolored pyramid ant is a fast desert ant with a body in two colours. It builds little nests of fine sand shaped like craters. It is also a clever tool user: it drops stones into other ants' nests to block their door.
Lives in
Southwestern United States, Mexico, Central America, Peru and Jamaica, in deserts
What does it eat?
It searches the ground for food, including seeds. By carrying seeds around, it helps plants spread.
How fast is it?
A garden snail about 0.05 km/h (0.03 mph)
A tortoise about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
Bicolored pyramid ant about 0.3 km/h (0.19 mph)
A person walking about 5 km/h (3.1 mph)
cool stuff
Fun facts
1
When it competes with honey pot ants for food, it surrounds their nest and drops stones and sticks down the entrance.
2
Only about five workers are needed to drop stones fast enough to bother the other nest.
3
It is most busy in the afternoon and moves very fast.
4
Its name comes from its two coloured body and its pyramid shaped sand mounds.
you asked
Most asked questions about Bicolored pyramid ant
?Do ants really use tools?
Yes. This ant drops stones into the nests of rival ants to block them.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Dorymyrmex bicolor
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- North America, South America
Where the facts come from
- Dorymyrmex bicolor (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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