Red wood ant

The red wood ant is a small forest insect with a reddish head and body and a darker tail end. Each ant is only about half a centimetre long, but red wood ants are never really alone. They live together in enormous families, working side by side all day long among the trees of Europe and Asia.

The most amazing thing red wood ants make is their nest. Working as a team, they pile up grass, twigs, and pine needles into a big dome-shaped mound, often in a sunny woodland clearing where the warmth can reach it. These mounds can be as tall as a person, and a single busy nest can hold hundreds of thousands of ants.

Most ant nests have just one queen, but a red wood ant nest is different. It can have many queens laying eggs, all sharing the same home. The worker ants take care of the eggs and young, mend the mound, and carry food back to the nest along long, winding trails that can stretch the length of a swimming pool and more.

Red wood ants are the tidy-up crew of the forest. Their favourite food is a sweet juice called honeydew, which they gently collect from tiny insects called aphids. They also gather up lots of other little bugs, which helps keep the woodland healthy. Foresters have long been glad to have these ants living among the trees.

There are fewer red wood ants than there once were, and they are listed as Near Threatened. This is mostly because the woodlands they need have been changing. When people look after forests with clearings and sunny patches, they give these busy, helpful ants the space to keep building their marvellous mounds.