An ant is a small insect. It has six legs. An ant lives in a large group called a colony. A colony may have up to one million ants. An ant is very strong. It can carry more than 20 times its weight.

An ant has two sets of very strong, jagged jaws. The bigger jaws are used to carry things and to dig. The smaller jaws are for chewing.

The queen ant has only one job. She lays thousands of eggs to keep the colony going. A male ant’s job is to mate with the queen. After mating, the male ant dies.

A worker ant is always female. She does all the work in the colony. A worker ant finds food. She cares for queen and the young. She keeps the nest clean.

Ants like warm weather. They live almost everywhere on land except for very cold places. Some ants live in underground tunnels or build dirt mounds. Other ants live inside trees or in plants. Some ants build nests from tree leaves.

There are over 10,000 different kinds of ants. Army ants do not stay in one place. Army ants move across the land in huge swarms. They eat any insects or plants they find.

Slave maker ants raid other ant nests. They capture the young ants. Harvester ants collect seeds and store the seeds in their nests.

Scientists believe that there are one million ants for every person in the world!