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It has been referred to as the "panda ant" due to its coloration, consisting of a white coat covering all of its head except the eyes, and black and white spots appearing over the rest of its body. The coloration is aposematic , serving as a warning to predators of its painful and powerful sting.
The pavement ant is dark brown to blackish, and 2.5–4 millimeters (0.10–0.16 in) long. A colony is composed of workers, alates, and a queen. Workers do have a small stinger, which can cause mild discomfort in humans but is essentially harmless. Alates, or new queen ants and drones, have wings, and are at least twice as large as the workers ...
In the case of fire ants, the venom consists mainly of alkaloid (>95%) and protein (<1%) components. [2] Stinging ants cause a cutaneous condition that is different from that caused by biting venomous ants. Particularly painful are stings from fire ants, although the bullet ant's sting is considered by some to be the most painful insect sting.
The treatment uses the entire body of the ant and not just the venom, and unlike fire ant venom immunotherapy (which is occasionally used), WBE contains venom proteins. [ 59 ] [ 56 ] To reduce a patient's sensitivity to the venom, gradual increases of dose extracts are injected into the body. [ 60 ]
[227] [228] Unlike in honeybees, the sting lacks barbs, and so the stinger is not left in the area the ant has stung, allowing the ants to sting repeatedly without any harm to themselves. [229] The retractable sting is located in their abdomen, attached to a single venom gland connected by the venom sac, which is where the venom is accumulated.
These ants have a two-segmented petiole (a petiole and postpetiole) connecting their abdomen to the thorax. They have 10 segments in their antennae, which end in large segmented clubs. Thief ants possess small stingers on their oblong abdomens. Worker ants have large jaws for carrying food, usually other ants' brood, back to the colony.
The longhorn crazy ant is able to invade new habitats and outcompete other species of ants. In 1991, in the large closed dome of the research station Biosphere 2 in the Arizona Desert, no particular ant species was dominant. By 1996, the longhorn crazy ant had virtually replaced all the other ant species.
Bulldog ants are known for being aggressive and defensive of nests, and sting and use their mandibles to fight off attackers. [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 6 ] Myrmecia esuriens is closely related to M. pilosula , the venomous jack jumper ant , the sting of which is known to be deadly to humans sensitive or allergic to the venom.