Ants Bite - Red Weaver Ants - Oecophylla smaragdina

Ants bite and Thailand’s Red Weaver Ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) are no exception. These red weaver ants are territorial and aggressive. When the ants bite you will certainly know about it. Rarely will you escape with just one ant bite as their amazing communication system can quickly gather a whole army to deal with your intrusion.

Thailand’s red weaver ants have definitely adopted the principle of ‘bite first, ask questions later’. Although weaver ants bite, they have a unique feature which gives them their name. The weaver ants bind leaves together using a “silk’ from their larvae, to form nests in which they care for their ant eggs. Sometimes the nests can be made from just one or two leaves but can also be extremely large with many leaves being woven together to form a nest of about half a meter. When the gap between the leaves is large, the ants form “ant chains” to enable the leaves to be drawn together. The finished nest is strong and waterproof.

Colonies of red weaver ants can be quite large containing up to half a million workers and can extend over several trees. The weaver ants have two sizes. The large size workers forage, build nests and defend whilst the small size ants take care of the nests. The Queen ant lays her eggs on a leaf and the workers will build a nest and move the eggs into it. As the colony grows, more and more nests are built.

Weaver ants prey on small insects and extract the honeydew excreted by them. Farmers in S.E. Asia will sometimes use the ants as a biological form of pest control.