What is the Largest Ant in the World?

African driver ant (Dorylus gribodoi) is the biggest ant in the world. This queen driver ant can grow up to nearly 5 cm long.

It is also known as Dorylus, Safari Ants or Saifu. Dorylus is a large genus of army ants which found in central and east Africa.

Fun Facts About Dorylus

  • Each Dorylus colony can contain over 20 million individuals driver ant.
  • During food supplies they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 50,000,000 ants.
  • Driver ants prey on larvae of the African sugarcane borer.
  • Earthworms is the large part of diet of Dorylus.
  • Their queens are even larger and the drones are larger than the soldiers
  • After mating, the queen will lay up to 1,000,000 eggs per month.
  • When East African tribe Maasai moran suffer from a gash in the bush, they use the soldiers to stitch the wound by getting the ants to bite on both sides of the gash

Scientific classification of Dorylus

  • Kingdom:Animalia
  • Phylum: Arthropoda
  • Class: Insecta
  • Order: Hymenoptera
  • Family: Formicidae
  • Subfamily:Dorylinae
  • Leach, 1815
  • Tribe: Dorylini
  • Leach, 1815
  • Genus: Dorylus
  • Fabricius, 1793
  • Type species: Vespa helvola
  • Diversity: 61 species

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