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Stinging ants cause a cutaneous condition that is different from that caused by biting venomous ants. Particularly painful are stings from fire ants, although the bullet ant's sting is considered by some to be the most painful insect sting. [3]: 450 First aid for fire ant bites includes external treatments and oral medicines. [citation needed]
Besides the momentary sting from the bite, O. bauri contains a mixture of formic acid and protein, which may have a high toxic activity, and is discharged after the ant bite. [6] Within humans, there have been records of immediate burning at the site of the sting but that usually dissipates after an hour. [6]
Ant bites tend to be small, swollen bumps that appear in clusters, Kassouf says. Fire ants also sting humans, Frye says, which can cause small pus-filled bumps on the skin, according to the ...
Driver ants, from the genus Dorylus, are found in the Old World, especially West Africa and the Congo Basin. Unlike the army ants of the New World, Old World army ants have a functional sting but rarely use it, preferring their razor-sharp, falcate mandibles for defense instead. Dorylus spp. colonies also reach larger sizes than Eciton.
Fire ants often attack small animals such as small lizards and can kill them. Unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants bite only to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom called solenopsin, a compound from the class of piperidines.
[227] [228] Unlike in honeybees, the sting lacks barbs, and so the stinger is not left in the area the ant has stung, allowing the ants to sting repeatedly without any harm to themselves. [229] The retractable sting is located in their abdomen, attached to a single venom gland connected by the venom sac, which is where the venom is accumulated.
Trap-jaw ants of this genus have the second-fastest moving predatory appendages within the animal kingdom, [2] after the dracula ant (Mystrium camillae). [8] One study of Odontomachus bauri recorded peak speeds between 126 and 230 km/h (78 and 143 mph), with the jaws closing within just 130 microseconds on average.
Colonies of real army ants always have only one queen, while some other ant species can have several queens. The queen is dichthadiigyne (a blind ant with large gaster) but may sometimes possess vestigial eyes. [5] The queens of army ants are unique in that they do not have wings, have an enlarged gaster size and an extended cylindrical abdomen ...