Parasites In Ants

Parasites can be found in many different species of ant. Scientists have discovered what are believed to be the world’s first known parasites in ants. The study took place at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and was done by a phage (or virus) expert named Mark Moulds and a Myrmecologist who studies ants named Gustavo Correa. These two scientists found that 15% of arthropods, which are insects in the class, from species of Camponotus ants had viruses inside of them.

Parasites In Ants

We all know that ants are amazing and can be a big help to us—they eat pests and help grow plants. But did you know that some ants have parasites?

Parasites are organisms that live on or inside of other living things (called hosts) and get their food from those hosts. They can be bacteria, fungi, or worms. Some parasites have evolved to become dependent on their host for their survival, which means the parasite cannot survive without its host.

Ants are social insects that live in large colonies with many members who cooperate to carry out tasks like foraging for food or defending the colony from predators. A large colony may contain hundreds of thousands of ants! Ants also have specialized jobs such as protecting the queen from danger, finding food for the colony by foraging for it outside the nest, building new nests when necessary, defending against predators by biting them if they come too close too often (ouch!), taking care of eggs laid by queens during reproduction season every year so they can hatch into new queens later on (this happens every year starting around winter time), transporting dead bodies out of their nest if someone dies inside.

The parasites in ants are known as symbionts. These are organisms that live on and inside of another organism, but do not harm the host. A symbiont is different than a parasite because it actually benefits the host organism by providing nutrients or protection.

The most common types of parasites in ants are protozoans, bacteria and fungi. One type of protozoan, called a sporozoan, lives inside of an ant’s abdomen. The sporozoan reproduces inside the host’s body, but it cannot survive outside of it.

Another type of parasite is the nematode worm, which infects both adult ants and their larvae. Nematodes can cause damage to the host by feeding off its tissue or living off nutrients from its organs without providing any benefit in return (like giving nutrients back to their hosts).

List of Parasites In Ants