Ants live together in big groups called colonies, and as of November 2026, about 20 quadrillion ants live on Earth. In a colony, the queen is the ant that lays the eggs. Almost all the other ants you see are female workers that cannot lay eggs. Worker ants find food, take care of the young, and build and defend the nest. So how do all these ants work together? Let's look at how ants send messages.

Ants do not see very well. They find their way mostly by smell and touch, and they use their two antennae to smell and to touch things. Ants use scent chemicals called pheromones to lead each other to food. When an ant finds food, it lays a scent trail on the way home, and the pheromone makes other ants likely to follow the same path.

Ants work together to defend their home. Worker ants defend their nests from other ants, and if an ant colony is attacked, ants make alarm chemicals that call other workers to help defend the nest.

Ants also share food. Ants can carry liquid food in their bodies and share it with nestmates by spitting it up. In honeypot ant colonies, special workers called repletes swell up to store sweet liquid food for the colony.

Leafcutter ants grow their own food. They carry leaf pieces to their nest and use them to grow a fungus garden, and in a leafcutter colony, small ants chew the leaf pieces into a paste for the garden. Leafcutter ants eat only the fungus they grow. A Texas leafcutter ant colony can hold up to about 2 million ants. When a leafcutter queen starts a new garden, she carries a bit of her home colony's fungus in her mouth.

Let's follow a young queen. After mating, a young queen loses her wings and looks for a place to start a new nest. A new queen raises her first workers, and then they take over the work of the nest. In most species a queen mates only once, and she never needs to mate again. A queen ant can live for several years, but many workers live only a few months.

Some ants can sting, and all ants can bite. A fire ant sting can cause burning, itching and swelling, and if an ant stings or bites you, you should tell a grown-up. Trouble breathing or a tight chest after a sting means getting medical help right away.

Fire ants have a way to survive floods. When a flood comes, fire ants cling together and float in a group, and a fire ant raft carries the whole colony, with the queen and young in the middle. To stay safe from fire ants, stay away from their mounds and from floating rafts of ants.

Ants also change the ground they live in. They dig tunnels that mix and air the soil, and they spread plant seeds and help return nutrients to the soil.

Words to know

• colonies: big ant groups
• pheromone: scent chemical
• antennae: feelers
• repletes: food-storing workers
• fungus: mushroom kind