Ants are the most species-rich of all social insects. More than 12,500 of an estimated total of 22,000 species have been classified.

The largest recorded contiguous colony of ants in the world stretches 3,700 miles (6,000 kilometres) from northern Italy, through the south of France to the Atlantic coast of Spain, and is made up of a species of Argentine ant (Linepithema humile) introduced into Europe during the 1920s.

Ants don't have ears. Instead, they "hear" by feeling vibrations in the ground with special sensors just below their knees called subgenual organs.

The abdomen of the ant contains two stomachs--one to hold food for themselves and one for food to be shared with others. When you see ants "kissing" they are actually feeding each other from their social stomachs.

The leafcutter ant can lift 50 times its own body weight with its jaws. That's like a human being lifting a truck with its teeth.

Once mated, the queen never mates again. She stores the male's sperm in a specialized pouch for later use, then looks for a suitable area to start a colony and sheds her wings.

Fire ants don't follow regular sleeping schedules (except for the queen) but rather a cyclical pattern of resting periods. Workers take about 250 tiny power naps that last about 1 minute on average at odd times throughout the day and night.

Queen ants have one of the longest life-spans of any known insect. A queen of the species Lasius niger (common black ant) was held in captivity by German entomologist Hermann Appel for 28¾ years.

Ants evolved from vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cretaceous period, and diversified after the rise of flowering plants.

Despite its name, there are no ants in Antarctica.