Ants represent a substantial food resource for a diverse array of animals. Their widespread abundance makes them readily available prey. These tiny insects offer significant nutritional value, rich in protein (39-45% dry weight) and fat (42-50%). They also provide important minerals such as iron, zinc, magnesium, potassium, and phosphorus.
Mammals Built for Ant Consumption
Myrmecophagy, a specialized feeding strategy, has evolved independently at least twelve times in various mammalian lineages, demonstrating a convergent evolutionary path towards consuming ants and termites. This group includes iconic species like giant anteaters, silky anteaters, tamanduas, aardvarks, pangolins, and echidnas. These mammals exhibit unique physical adaptations for locating and extracting insects from their nests.
Many specialized ant-eating mammals possess elongated, sticky tongues, which can extend significantly to capture prey deep within colony tunnels. They also feature powerful claws and forearms for digging into ant and termite mounds or decaying wood. These animals often have reduced or absent teeth, as they swallow prey whole, and specialized stomachs to grind and digest insects. Dense fur or protective scales, as seen in pangolins, provide defense against insect bites and stings. These predators may feed only briefly at each nest to avoid overwhelming defensive responses, yet can consume thousands of ants daily.
Birds and Reptiles: Opportunistic Ant Eaters
Many avian and reptilian species regularly incorporate ants into their diets. Northern flickers, a type of woodpecker, are known for their ant-eating habits, foraging on the ground to extract ants and their larvae from underground nests with their long, sticky tongues. A single flicker’s stomach has contained over 5,000 ants. Other woodpeckers, like the pileated woodpecker, also consume ants, with carpenter ants sometimes making up 60% of their diet.
Antbirds often follow swarms of army ants through tropical forests. These birds primarily capitalize on other insects, spiders, and small vertebrates flushed out by the ants’ foraging activities, rather than consuming the ants themselves. This strategy allows some antbird species to obtain a significant portion of their diet, sometimes 50% to 70%, from these ant-driven flushes. Among reptiles, horned lizards are prominent ant-eaters, with their diet heavily centered on ants, especially harvester ants. These lizards employ a “sit-and-wait” ambush technique and possess large stomachs for digesting the chitinous exoskeletons of numerous ants, consuming dozens to over 70 ants daily.
Generalist Predators: Ants as a Supplemental Food Source
For generalist predators, ants serve as a supplemental food source. Brown and black bears, for example, are omnivores that consume ants as a readily available and nutritious source of protein and fat, particularly when other food sources like berries or nuts are scarce. Larvae and pupae are especially prized, forming a significant protein source for black bears across temperate North America. Bears are adept at locating ant colonies, sometimes sniffing out up to 200 nests in a single day, and their consumption patterns can vary seasonally.
Certain primates, such as chimpanzees, also incorporate ants into their diet, often displaying sophisticated tool use to access them. Chimpanzees employ techniques like “ant-dipping” or “ant-fishing,” using modified sticks to extract army ants from their nests without being bitten. These methods provide important protein and fats. The consumption of ants by these generalist predators highlights the insects’ role in providing essential nutrients, particularly during periods when primary food sources are limited.