When it comes tovenom ’s toxicity , scientists work out quite how powerful it is by predicting the medial lethal dose , or LD50 . According to theUniversity of Florida ’s Book Of Insect Records , harvester ants take the top for insect spite toxicity in black eye – and hoo boy does it pack a puncher .
Harvester ants: the most potent insect venom?
Harvester ants embrace several species , but it was the venom produced by ants ofPogonomyrmexmaricopathat had an LD50value of 0.12 milligrams / kilograms when injected intravenously . That means it would take just 12 stings from these ants to vote out a 2 - kilo ( 4.4 - pound ) rat – one about the size of it of the bodaciousalpine woolly rat . Theoretically , that means it would take around 500 stings from harvester pismire to kill a homo , according to a showing at theOxford University Museum of Natural History .
Harvester ant conform to the colony way of life sharing digs in their thousands , and typically glean seeded player . However , they have been know to clean small insects and canstinglargervertebrate animalswhen threatened , with a individual emmet being capable to sting multiple time , and often multiple ants twinge a exclusive target .
Harvester ants: are they dangerous?
As adefensive strategythat call for such a stronghold of emmet , death byPogonomyrmexisn’t something you need to worry about . However , you probably require to avoid return on and thrash around in their nests – for model – and annul these should be gentle enough render harvester pismire do n’t do colonies by one-half .
When harvester ants form colonies , they make vegetation creating “ nest disk ” that can reach over 10 meters ( 33 feet ) in diam . They can account for between 1 to 15 percent of land area in suitable habitats , pull in them a reputation as a gadfly in agriculture that ’s arguably unfair give the good encroachment they can have on the environment .
Harvest ants: eco-warriors
In a2021 result ofAnnals of the Entomological Society of America , it was argue that it was mellow time we ditch the " pest " label for reaper ants in favor of seeing them askeystone species . This was because of the remarkable influence they have on the ecosystem by moving seeds around and create what the authors coined “ islands of fertility ” .
As they put it , the outrageousness of reaper ant nest can best be appreciated from an ethereal perspective , and they noticed a rummy phenomenon at the edge of these nest disks following a forest fire . It seemed that nest rims often hosted the first plant life to grow back , dictating what would go on to establish on the repose of the baked landscape painting .
Harvester ants: friend or foe?
So , given that an accidental nip from the odd harvester ant should at worse give you a few hr of pain , versus the abide influence they can have on our wild spaces abide by extreme weather result that are becoming more frequent under the ongoing mood crisis , we say that lands these ant firmly in the friend column .
Toxic venom be damned .
Despite their small size, harvester ants can have a big influence on the environment.Image credit: Christopher Seno / Shutterstock.com
