Beneath the soil, an empire thrives in total darkness. Millions of ants move through complex underground tunnel systems, communicating through invisible chemical signals. They farm fungus, wage wars, ...

Ant crickets are small insects that spend their entire lives inside ant colonies, one of the most hostile environments for outsiders. These crickets survive by moving carefully among the ants and ...

The black parasitic ant tricks the workers into attacking their amber queen. Current Biology / Takasuka et al. Ants are no strangers to violence. Sometimes, an outsider queen will attack a colony’s ...

Biologist E.O. Wilson once wrote that "ants are the most warlike of all animals," noting that clashes between ant colonies dwarfed the human battles at Waterloo and Gettysburg. But sometimes ant ...

Just like human societies, ant societies have a division of labor. Within a colony, some individuals feed the young while others are soldiers who protect the colony from intruders. New research across ...

The rainforests of northern Australia are home to extraordinary ant colonies. Instead of dwelling in underground burrows, these ants inhabit canopies of trees, dozens of meters above the ground, ...

Source: Princeton University Press/with permission. Ants are fascinating and remarkably intelligent insects who live in complex social groups called colonies. 1,2 When I first learned about ant expert ...

Imagine trying to build a house without a blueprint, find a shortcut through an unfamiliar city without a map, or govern a large organisation with no leaders and no meetings. It sounds impossible. Yet ...