Honeypot Ant

HONEYPOT ANT

Honeypot ant is also known as honey ant. There are around 34 different species of honey pot ants and all of them share the ability to store large amounts of nutritious liquid. The worker ants will collect food to feed them. Especially during the rainy seasons the honey pot ants are fed so much that they swell up and become living underground refrigerators, some of them can even swell to the size of grapes. Due to their enormously swollen abdomens, they usually lose their mobility and live in deep underground. The food is stored for the whole colony and is used during the dry seasons when food is not so plentiful, the ants can extract nourishment from them. These ants hold so many nutrients and energy that they have become a favoured food for many other animals including humans. A few honey pot ant species are known to be able to change colours to greens, oranges, reds, blues and yellows. This might have something to do with the type of liquid they are holding. Honeypot ants can be found in Western America, Mexico, Australia, South Africa and New Guinea. They usually live in hot and dry areas such as desert. Click here for the video.

They can change their colour according to what they eat.

The honeypot ants rarely move, they often found hanging on the ant nest.