What Do Ants Eat and Drink?

Ants are highly social insects that rely heavily on the organization of their colony. Through this organization, which includes assigned jobs for every ant, they are able to acquire food and survive in massive groups. Ants are not picky eaters; they will consume just about anything they can find, but some species have certain preferences and unique hunting techniques. According the UC Davis Agriculture and Natural Resources Department, there are more than 12,000 species of ants worldwide.

  1. Urban Dining

    • As many homeowners can attest, ants will find sustenance in basically anything in the urban environment. They may seek out sweets in particular, or sources of other carbohydrates, in order to supply the colony with the necessary energy to perform all of their functions. It is the worker ant in any ant species that humans usually see creating the beelines to their cupboards and counter tops; the one whose job it is to bring food home. In an urban setting, it's not always human food that ants will seek however; they often benefit us as well by eating common pests such as fleas and termites and will feed on decomposing organic material (like an animal carcass).

    Liquids

    • Ants need water to survive, like all living things. They obtain water from the moisture on plants or from other water sources in their environment. Ants also satisfy their water needs through the foods they eat. Additionally, they will drink many other human-made liquids, particularly sweet ones like soda.

    Natural Food Sources

    • In the wild ants will sustain themselves by eating a variety of foods. They usually feed on things like seeds, fungus, nectar and other insects. There are even species of ants, such as army ants, that sometimes eat things like birds, small mammals and reptiles.

    Hunting and Gathering Techniques

    • Ants show off their impressive intellect, physical prowess and tactical skills when they are in pursuit of food. They release chemicals to communicate with one another when they are searching for food and can quickly inform the colony when they are successful (or to send a warning of impending danger). When ants find something to eat, they can carry items up to three times their weight back to the nest. There is an Amazonian species of ant that create intricate traps using plant fibers and a fungus that reinforces and binds the trap's platform together. The platform has holes all over it, and once an unsuspecting insect pops its legs into one of those holes, a team of hundreds of ants inside the trap will ambush the prey.