What Is the Fastest Ant in the World?

Most ants walk at a calm pace, but some are true speed champions. There are two kinds of records: the fastest running ant and the fastest jaws.

Saharan silver ants (Cataglyphis bombycina) on the hot sand.

The fastest runner: the Saharan silver ant

The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) lives in the Sahara desert, where the sand can get hotter than 50°C. To survive, it forages in the hottest part of the day and runs extremely fast. In 2019, German researchers measured a top speed of 855 mm per second. That is 108 of its own body lengths per second. A cheetah manages about 16 body lengths per second.

The silver ant does not have long legs. It gets its speed by moving its legs very quickly, with each foot touching the hot ground for only a few thousandths of a second. Its silver hairs reflect sunlight and help it stay cool. A close relative, Cataglyphis fortis, reaches about 620 mm per second.

The fastest jaws: Dracula ants

Some ants are not fast runners, but have lightning fast jaws. The Dracula ant Mystrium camillae snaps its mandibles shut at up to 90 metres per second, more than 320 km per hour. That makes it the fastest known movement of any animal body part. It works like snapping your fingers: the jaws are pressed together, build up tension and then slide past each other. Read more about another Dracula ant in Dracula ants go hunting on their first day.

Trap-jaw ants

Trap-jaw ants of the genus Odontomachus hold their jaws wide open like a trap. When tiny hairs touch prey, the jaws snap shut at tens of metres per second. They can even use that force to launch themselves into the air to escape danger. We saw trap-jaw ants on our ant safari in Uganda. Another ant famous for jumping is the Indian jumping ant, which leaps with its legs. Read more in Harpegnathos venator facts.

Sources

• ScienceAlert, 2019. World's fastest ants clock 855 millimetres per second. Journal of Experimental Biology.

• University of Illinois, 2018. Dracula ants have fastest known appendages. Royal Society Open Science.

Photo: © Jonghyun Park