Meat Ant Profile
Ants are possibly the most successful animals on Earth, and their diversity allows them to dominate every continent except, ironically, Antarctica.
There are tens of thousands of species, and while many are known for their high-carb diet, others are more into protein. Meat ants, as you might have guessed, occupy the latter category.
Meat Ant Facts Overview
| Habitat: | Lightly wooded and open grassland, thriving in arid and urban areas |
| Location: | Australia |
| Lifespan: | Uknown, queens live for several years |
| Size: | Up to 12mm in queens, 6-7mm in workers |
| Weight: | Not listed |
| Colour: | Dark brown or black, some iridescence |
| Diet: | Opportunistic omnivores: seeds, nectar insects, meat |
| Predators: | Echidnas, birds, snakes, spiders |
| Top Speed: | Unknown |
| No. of Species: | 1 |
| Conservation Status: | Not listed |
This is a 30-million-year ant line, once occupying Australia alongside marsupial lions and Thunder birds. But while the Australian megafauna didn’t survive human colonisation, these ants are still thriving.
They’ll eat almost anything but are well known for stripping the flesh from dead vertebrates. Their tenacity, ability to work together, and resilience to certain invaders make them queens of their island, and perhaps heroes, too, if they are one day able to fight off invasive species.
Interesting Meat Ant Facts
1. They’re pretty
There’s no denying it, these are good-looking ants. While the common belies this quite a bit, the scientific name makes it fairly clear.
The species name purpureus comes from the Latin for purple, and the genus Iridomyrmex refers (in Greek) to “rainbow ants”. So, the species Iridomyrmex purpureus translates to a purple rainbow ant. Which is much nicer than meat ant, and a fitting moniker because this is an ant with purple or blue iridescence on its abdomen.
Meat ant works too, though, as these are probably best known for stripping vertebrate corpses. 1
2. They display a range of societies
Like most ants, meat ants engage in nuptial flights, where the virgin queens go out looking to get laid as quickly as possible so they can focus on building an enormous army out of their gazillion children and dominate the landscape.
Most of the time, this colony will be founded by a single queen, but in this species, there’s some variability to this.
In around 10% of cases, the queen takes on a partner or two, or, at least, tolerates them. In these cases, queens may hold domain over a subset of the colony or be adopted into an established colony. There may be up to four queens in a single colony.
Sometimes these additional queens will bud off and form another colony of their own. An interesting thing about colonies with multiple queens is how the workers treat them all the same. There appears to be no dominance hierarchy within the nest, despite the queens being unrelated to one another.
The size of the colony varies, too. Some have as few as 10,000 individuals, others have over 300,000. And these ants aren’t nearly as tolerant of members from other colonies. 2
3. They’re territorial
Meat ants are one of the most well-known species in Australia, recognised for their enormous colonies that occupy habitats that range in diversity from coastal to desert.
They’re also formidable opponents, and will fiercely defend their nest from anything they perceive as a threat.
But their food sources are equally well-protected. Meat ants will act as security guards for plant species they feed on, killing pests like caterpillars. In exchange, the plants produce a sugary treat for the ants from special glandular nodes on the stem.
A plant covered in biting ants can even resist predation from large herbivores like kangaroos, and this results in a symbiotic relationship between the two organisms. 3
4. They can box
Should they come up against a worthy adversary, these ants are not known to shy away from a little six-fisticuffs.
When the territorial boundaries aren’t respected by conspecifics, a ritualistic battle commences in which there’s an almost choreographed series of events:
First, there is the initial contact. This is where antennae exchange information and the rival is identified as an adversary.
Then, there’s a closer inspection, where mandibles get involved and the opponent is held in place. If they are then established as an enemy, both will rear up and start a sort of slap battle with their front legs.
There’s a period of posturing, where the ants will stand side-to-side, then they show each other their bums, and finally, there are some hind leg kicks, before the battle is over and they make friends.
Why they do this is still a bit of a mystery. 4
5. They plant seeds
One thing we do know is that these ants are brilliant agriculturalists.
One of the popular food sources for this species comes from seeds, which have evolved to take advantage of this animal’s lust for flesh.
A single nest is capable of dispersing over 300,000 plant seeds and this species has developed symbiotic relationships with some plants, that grow special appendages called elaiosomes thought to specifically target the ants.
The elaiosomes contain fats and proteins in similar proportions as meat and is used like fruit, to attract the distributor, who carries it underground. 5
6. They’re immune to cane toads
Meat ants are endemic to Australia, where the invasive [cane toad] has wreaked havoc on the native fauna.
One animal that stands a chance at defending against it is the meat ant, whose immunity to cane toad toxins may allow them to function as a natural pest control against the dangerous invader.
Meat ants have been known to eat metamorph toads, which are small enough to be immobilised and carried off by a team of meat ant workers.
It’s unknown whether this happens to a significant degree in the natural interactions, but it might be a useful avenue of research in the fight against the toad infestation.
7. But not the echidna
Despite this ant’s powerful presence in the ecosystem, it’s also a common prey item for larger animals.
Echidnas are essentially spiny marsupial anteaters that sweat milk and lay eggs, and one of their favourite foods is the meat ant queen, who contains almost half her body weight in fat.
Bird species of various kinds predate on the ant either on the ground or up in the trees, and even the blind snake – an animal with perhaps the two most disadvantageous handicaps – is able to sniff out ant trails and nibble on the workers.
Even moths can get into their nests and eat the brood, as there’s nothing particularly exciting about this ant’s defences.
Meat Ant Fact-File Summary
Scientific Classification
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Family: | Formicidae |
| Genus: | Iridomyrmex |
| Species: | purpureus |
Fact Sources & References
- “Meat ant”, Jungle Dragon.
- Bert Hölldobler (1985), “Colony founding, queen dominance and oligogyny in the Australian meat ant Iridomyrmex purpureus”, Springer Link.
- Jordan Dean (2019), “Meat Ants | The Kickboxing Ants From Down Under”, YouTube.
- G. ETTERSHANK (1982), “RITUALISED FIGHTING IN THE MEAT ANT IRIDOMYRMEX PURPUREUS (SMITH) (HYMENOPTERA: FORMICIDAE)”, Wiley Online Library.
- Dave Lubertazzi (2010), “The Ecology of a Keystone Seed Disperser, the Ant Rhytidoponera violacea”, PubMed Central.