Indian black ant
The Indian black ant lives in nests in the ground. It can be black, reddish or even a little yellow. It is a clever farmer ant that looks after tiny sap-sucking bugs.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
It strokes aphids with its feelers, and the aphids give it a drop of sweet honeydew.
In return, it guards the aphids and chases away ladybirds that want to eat them.
It is the favourite food of the Indian pangolin, a scaly animal that licks up ants.
Its rubbish piles outside the nest help to feed the soil.
Most asked questions about Indian black ant
?What does the Indian black ant eat?
Mainly sweet honeydew from aphids and other small bugs, plus things it finds around houses.
?Why do Indian black ants come into toilets?
They come to lick up a substance called urea, which they like to eat.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Camponotus compressus
- Group
- Ants
- Family
- Formicidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
- Lives on
- Asia
Where the facts come from
- Camponotus compressus (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 No machine-readable author provided. Shyamal assumed (based on copyright claims).. CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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