Wood ants, particularly those in the Formica rufa group, play a crucial role in forest ecosystems as keystone species. They are known for their mound-building behavior and their ability to ...

When carpenter ants are in nature, they’re drawn to fallen trees and stumps—any large piece of wood really. The decay that takes over dead or compromised wood outdoors makes it easier to ...

Visit BBC Webwise for full instructions There are two main species of wood ants - hairy wood ants and red wood ants. Hairy wood ants are a northern species in the UK, but they are found as far ...

Carpenter ants chew through wood to construct their nests. You might think that a tiny ant couldn’t possibly ruin your day, ...

It seems that the tiny wood ant is something of an expert on reusable energy. The intelligent design of the nest makes it a perfect place to live. Gabrielle Flinn from the RSPB explained that the ...

In project SpecIAnt we study speciation and hybridization using wood ants as a model system. We focus on the recently diverged Formica rufa group wood ants, many of which occur in Southern Finland ...

If you weighed every human and all the ants, the scales would balance. The resin of conifer trees contains antibiotic chemicals and is harvested by the European wood ant to disinfect their nests.

Even when it doesn’t work, the wave of energy makes the ants freeze. Bigger ants, like Japanese wood ants, are more agile than their counterparts and much larger — they’re equivalent in size ...

Ingo Arndt (Germany) documents the efficient dismemberment of a blue ground beetle by red wood ants. “Full of ant” is how Ingo described himself after lying next to the ants’ nest for just a few ...