Are common house ants cannibals?

Question

Are ants cannibals?A huge trail of ants (many hundreds) was on my kitchen counter last nightso I sprayed them with vinnegar (I was out of windex so I used vinnegarinstead). Being late, and wishing the vinnegar to discourage new foragers,I retired for the evening.Much to my chagrin, another, even larger swarm of Argentine ants had takenover my counter top, this morning - and the dead ants seem to havedisappeared. I was surprised.So, I sprayed 'em again and left the area for a while. Sure enough, yetanother swarm replaced the second, and I noticed some carrying away thedead bodies of their camerades. My question..... Are ants cannibals or did the inadvertant pickling enticethem to cannibalism?

mjciccarel · Accepted Answer

In my experience they are cannibals. I have seen them eat horn worms,crickets and a snake. Let me say for the record all of these wereOutside, not inside.MJ

RicodJour · Answer

Sure, they'll eat any old dead bug.Stop spraying and get some ant traps with the poison they take back totheir nests, and put down some boric acid powder such as Terro .  It's the best way to control them.R

dadiOH · Answer

They were carrying off their fallen comrades in order to give them a proper burial and memorial service.  No flowers please...

dpb · Answer

...I was sorry I didn't get see the obituary announcement.  Is there a memorial established somewhere for contributions?

Red Green · Answer

Donita Luddington  wrote innews:wex9wkbjvadg.y9x4yss3ypyg$.     Something to be learned here? Maybe ants marinated with vinegar taste good?

HeyBub · Answer

Your ants are either omnivores or carried away the bodies of their loved ones for proper Christian burials.I say this because cremation is probably not an option for an ant.

mm · Answer

I don't know about most ants, but in the tropics, like Costa Rica, there are leaf-cutter ants, that cut little crescents out of leaves, bring the pieces back to the hill and feed them to the fungus that they cultivate. As the fungus grows, they eat some of it, take the waste out of the hill and pile it outside. Amazingly complicated I think.

formatting link

dadiOH · Answer

No, they'd just prefer donations to the UAAVF (United Ants Against Vinegar Fund).

Flikina Rosalka · Answer

Flikina Rosalka had written this in response to :I know lasius niger ants are because I saw a group of them eating one oftheir queens (came back later and found they had left half the corpse).They weren't provoked but spray or anything because I wouldn't want to getrid of them (even though they are a bit of an inconvenience when they'reall over the kitchen floor between 9 and 10 PM). Quite a number of bugsare cannibals so it's not really suprising.D-------------------------------------

azigni · Answer

I didn't catch the beginning of this, but they sure won't say no to the  nectar in flowers if they can get to it.

Are common house ants cannibals?

Join the Discussion

Didn't find your answer?

Are common house ants cannibals?

Related discussions