What driver ants lack in size they make up for in sheer weight of numbers. A single colony may contain more than a million workers, and when they go hunting, the forest floor itself seems to come alive.
- They look like ants, they act like ants – but these destructive, house-wrecking little terrors are no ants
- It floats, it's larger than a dinner plate and it's made up of more than 100,000 individuals
These expeditions are driven by the colony’s constant demand for protein. As a nomadic species, they cannot maintain long-term food reserves and must hunt almost continuously. At the business end of these raiding parties are the soldiers, bearing enormous heads armed with long, scissor-like mandibles capable of dismantling prey piece by piece.
Their prey range is extraordinarily broad. Swarms easily overwhelm other invertebrates, but will also attack frogs, lizards, birds, and occasionally small mammals, especially if they are trapped or injured. They can even pose a danger to vulnerable humans.
One documented incident describes a Ugandan man who fell asleep under a bush and was overwhelmed by a swarm, sustaining thousands of bites that triggered shock and left him comatose before he was rescued
