Rainforest
Realm
Ants
Trap Jaw Ant
Do you know what a trap
jaw ant is?
A
trap jaw ant can really pinch you because the pincers that the ant
has are so sharp that a scorpion like creature can be killed by a couple
of the mighty trap jaw ants. The trap jaw ants live not only in the
rain forest, but can live in all the warm places like in Mexico.
Even though
the trap jaw ant's
pincer is so strong, it can't dig like fire ants can. To build their nest,
they use an old hollow twig instead. Just like other ants ,the queen
lay eggs and the others come and care for them. When moving the young to
another nest, they use a smaller pair sets of pincers so they wont hurt
the larvae because they are so fragile. If the ants are in battle with
army ants, the trap jaw ant quickly sprays its poison from its abdomen
onto the army ant and runs from
battle.
When the
trap jaw ants are hungry, they don't just go and buy food like we do,
they have to hunt for it. They go for other bugs like sting tails,
in a group they hunt for a sting tail. They find a sting tail, and they
quickly run to the sting tail and
attack! They use their mighty pincers to stab the sting tail so they can
weaken it and then grab it to take back to their colony. When the sting
tail is still alive, the ants roll up in a curled position and spray the
poison they used back from the army ant battle. Then they eat the sting
tail.
The trap
jaw ant can not swallow solids like humans, so instead they suck liquid
from their prey! It is hard for
human hunters to hunt animals, but just a couple of trap jaw ants can catch
about anything for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack like a snap!
