Did you know that there is a kind of ant that can instantly "fly" with its mouth?

Insects must be the animals closest to us. They are almost everywhere. Even if not everyone likes them, you can never completely avoid them, you can only learn to live with them.

Take ants for example. If you look carefully while walking on the road, you will definitely find ants. Sometimes they even appear in your home. Ants are so mysterious that it is difficult to detect them at ordinary times, as if they are invisible; but as long as you look down and look for them, you will definitely find them.

Here's today's hero: the giant ant | Rison Thumboor / Wikimedia Commons

If this is the standard, the Singapore Ant Museum is simply an enlarged ant. This is a museum dedicated to displaying ants. It is hidden in the downtown area and looks similar to the surrounding buildings. If you don't look carefully, it's hard to even find that this small building is a museum. The protagonist of today's calendar is the big-toothed ant (Odontomachus spp.) from this museum.

The white house in the middle is the Singapore Ant Museum | Google Street View

2,300 times faster than a human blink

Hearing the name "Big-toothed Ant", you may feel creepy, and immediately imagine a huge, ferocious ant with sharp teeth. Yes, just like its scientific name, this type of ant has a pair of prominent and developed mandibles, which is called "Trap-jaw ants" in English, which literally means "trapping jaw ants".

Odontomachus bauri, whose large jaws can open 180 degrees is its important weapon | References [1]

This pair of well-developed upper jaws can open 180 degrees and close rapidly when launching an attack at a speed 2,300 times faster than a human blink, leaving the prey no chance of escape.

The big-toothed ant is not a specific type of ant, but a genus in the subfamily Myrmecophaga of the family Myrmecophaga. Taxonomists believe that the big-toothed ant is a relatively primitive ant, which is closer to the bee ancestors of ants in both appearance and lifestyle - they have a well-developed stinger and better eyesight than the ants we see in daily life. The big-toothed ant is a group of out-and-out carnivores. Most other ants like to hunt in groups, but the big-toothed ant is better at fighting alone. In the wild, you can often find big-toothed ants moving alone, but you rarely see them marching in groups.

Currently, there are about 60 species of the genus O. monticola discovered worldwide, and there are 7 species of O. silvestrii recorded in China, namely O. monticola, O. granatus, O. silvestrii, O. formosae, O. longi, O. rixosus, and O. xizangensis. O. monticola is considered the most common, but in fact, it is only distributed in South and Southwest China; the O. monticola is widely distributed in Northeast China, North China, East China, and other places[2].

Mountain big-toothed ant. Some taxonomists also believe that the Penglai big-toothed ant is a variant of the mountain big-toothed ant | Johnsonwang6688 / Wikimedia Commons

The big-toothed ant is easy to identify. It looks different from other common ants. It not only has well-developed mandibles, but also has a slender body and is generally larger in size. Taking the common Penglai big-toothed ant as an example, the queen ant can be up to 1.4 cm in size, and even the worker ants are 1.3 cm. Big-toothed ants mainly fight alone, so there are not many worker ants in an ant nest, usually only one or two hundred, or even only dozens. Their reproductive capacity is far less than that of other ants, but they have a longer lifespan.

It hurts more than a wasp sting.

The big-toothed ants are extremely cautious when wandering around. When they sense danger, they will immediately open their jaws completely and constantly adjust their positions as the enemy turns. At this time, if you dare to get close to your finger, it will close its jaws at lightning speed, and most people will let it go because of the severe pain. If you still hold on tightly, the big-toothed ants will use their ultimate move - sting! Ordinary ants are small in size and have short stings, which are difficult to pierce human skin; even if they pierce, the venom released is unlikely to pose a threat. But the sting of the big-toothed ant is very slender, and being stung by it is even more painful than being stung by a wasp.

Close-up of the mandible (glued) | Reference [3]

When encountering prey, the big-toothed ants are not so reckless. They will first use their antennae to test the prey, and if the prey is within their tolerance, they will quickly clamp the prey with their mandibles. However, the big-toothed ants also have the occasional miss, and once it misses the prey, you can hear the sound of its two mandibles colliding.

If the big-toothed ant does not miss, the prey will be in danger. The big-toothed ant's large curved jaws can directly penetrate the prey's body. If the environment is quiet enough, you can even hear the sound of the prey being penetrated. In order to prevent the prey from struggling to escape, it will use its sting to paralyze the prey. Prey locked by the big-toothed ant usually cannot escape death.

The pair of mandibles that can close quickly can also help the big-toothed ant escape from danger. By clamping the mandibles in the air, the big-toothed ant can quickly launch itself into the air, even to a height of several centimeters.

These ferocious ants mainly live in subtropical and tropical areas. They like warm and humid forests with good leaf litter, which are relatively far away from most humans. If you go to the suburbs for fun, you may encounter them unexpectedly - don't be afraid, as long as you don't actively hurt them and keep a certain distance from them, you will not be stung, and they will never look at you twice.

Although these insects are tiny, they play an extremely important role in the environment. They can help improve the soil, spread seeds, pollinate and prey on pests. We should not underestimate them.

Mountain giant ants, which prefer to live in forests with leaf litter | harum.koh / Wikimedia Commons

Nowadays, more and more people like ants, and even keep and observe them as pets. There are also many types of ant breeding boxes on the market. However, if you keep big-toothed ants at home, you must be careful when handling them - when feeding or cleaning, you must not be bitten or stung by them, and don't let them escape. Although your home may not be suitable for them to live in for a long time, if a big-toothed ant suddenly appears somewhere in your home, most people will not be able to greet it without changing their expression.

Finally, let’s end with the introduction on the homepage of the Singapore Ant Museum:

Ants are truly amazing creatures and most of the hard-work they do go unnoticed.…So come equipped and prepared for an unforgettable Antventure into the hidden world of ants!

Ants are an amazing group of creatures, and much of the hard work they do goes unnoticed. Grab your gear and enter the hidden world of ants!

References

[1] SN Patek, JE Baio, BL Fisher, AV Suarez. Multifunctionality and mechanical origins: Ballistic jaw propulsion in trap-jaw ants (2006). PNAS. 103 (34) 12787-12792; DOI:10.1073/pnas.0604290103

[2] Li Wenjie, Chen Zhilin, Zhou Shanyi. Analysis of the insect fauna of the Chinese ant-like subfamily (2020). Journal of Henan Agricultural University. 54(3): 471-498. DOI:10.16445/j.cnki.1000-2340.20200520.001

[3] Fredrick J. Larabee, Andrew V. Suarez. Mandible-Powered Escape Jumps in Trap-Jaw Ants Increase Survival Rates during Predator-Prey Encounters (2015). Plos One.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124871