Ants are one of the most abundant insects on the planet, forming a widespread food source for any creature capable of breaching their defenses. This specialized diet, known as myrmecophagy, provides a rich bounty of protein and minerals, with some species containing up to 40% protein by weight. Predators must neutralize the ants’ defensive tactics, which often involve painful stings or the spraying of formic acid, a potent chemical weapon. Exploiting this nutritious resource has driven the evolution of highly specific physical and behavioral adaptations across the animal kingdom.
Mammals With Specialized Adaptations
Large mammals that rely on ants have evolved extreme physical modifications to overcome the challenges of this food source. The Giant Anteater, for example, possesses robust, powerful claws used for tearing into termite mounds and ant nests. Its long, tubular snout houses a tongue that can extend over two feet and is coated in thick, sticky saliva, which rapidly collects prey before the colony can mount a full defense.
Pangolins utilize keratin scales as protective armor against the bites and stings of their prey. They also have the ability to seal their nostrils and ears to prevent ants from entering while they feed. The tongue of a giant pangolin can be nearly half its body length, anchored near the pelvis, allowing it to probe deep into subterranean tunnels.
The African Aardvark locates its prey using an acute sense of smell. Its powerful forearms and spade-like claws enable it to rapidly excavate soil. Once the nest is breached, its sticky, foot-long tongue can lap up as many as 50,000 ants in a single night. These large myrmecophages exhibit a lower-than-average basal metabolic rate, which helps compensate for the low energy density of an ant and termite diet.
Avian and Herpetological Strategies
Birds and reptiles have developed diverse, specialized strategies to consume ants. New World Antbirds, for instance, do not typically eat the army ants themselves but instead follow the massive raiding swarms. These birds are “ant-followers,” feasting on the fleeing arthropods, small reptiles, and amphibians flushed out by the advancing ant column.
The Northern Flicker is one of the most ant-focused birds in North America, often foraging on the ground rather than in trees. It uses a specialized, flattened tongue coated in sticky saliva, which it can extend up to two inches beyond its beak to retrieve ants from underground galleries. A distinct behavior known as “anting” is observed in over 200 bird species, where they actively rub formic acid-producing ants onto their feathers. This action is hypothesized to neutralize the ant’s acid to make it palatable or use the chemical as a topical agent to control feather parasites.
Reptiles like the Texas Horned Lizard are dietary specialists whose main food source is the venomous harvester ant. To counter the ant’s potent sting, these lizards possess a plasma factor in their blood that neutralizes the ant venom. They also secrete copious amounts of mucus to coat and incapacitate the ants upon ingestion, minimizing the risk of internal injury.
Invertebrate Predators and Specialized Hunters
Within the arthropod world, ant predation involves sophisticated ambush and mimicry techniques, often targeting specific ant life stages. The Antlion larva is an ambush predator that constructs a conical pit trap in dry, loose sand. When an ant falls into the pit, the larva flicks sand at the edges, pulling the struggling ant down to its hidden mandibles at the bottom.
Specialized spiders employ aggressive mimicry, adopting the appearance and zigzag movement of ants to blend into the colony or approach their prey undetected. Other predators, like the Anteater Scarab Beetle, use chemical deception, allowing themselves to be dragged into the ant nest as a seemingly dead insect. Once inside, the beetle preys on the vulnerable ant larvae and pupae.
Phorid flies hover over fire ants and inject an egg into the worker’s thorax. The resulting larva migrates to the ant’s head, where it develops and eventually causes the head to fall off, emerging as an adult fly. Even ants themselves are major predators of other ant species, with Army Ants conducting massive predatory raids to capture and consume their brood.