The red army

With an impressively proportioned brain and a passing resemblance to a fairy, the wood ant is one to avoid getting in your pants, says Ian Morton

IF you go down to the woods today, you’re sure of a big surprise if you sit on one of those comfortable-looking mounds on the south-facing edge of a sunlit glade. It seems an ideal place for you and your teddy bears to picnic. However, the spot is already taken. Compounded of leaf litter, pine needles and forest debris, these mounds are multistorey homes to wood ants. The largest heap may rise 6ft in height and contain interconnected colonies seething with as many as half a million workers and 100 queens. Southern or red wood ants are the largest of the 51 native ant species in Britain, workers measuring one-third of an inch and the queens almost half an inch. They are inclined to bite and spray acid to protect…

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Country Life (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 12, 2025

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