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Sticker of Brown-black carpenter ant
Bug card No. 0207 of 1,500

Brown-black carpenter ant

Camponotus ligniperda
Eats: A bit of everythingAntsForests and woods6 legs

The brown-black carpenter ant is one of the biggest ants in Europe. It has a black head and a reddish brown middle. It nests in old tree stumps, fallen logs and under stones in sunny woods.

Lives in
Europe, in sunny, dry woodlands
Length
0.7 to 1.5 cm (0.28 to 0.59 in)
workers; queens are even bigger
Top speed
about 0.52 km/h (0.32 mph)
On foot, estimate
What does it eat?
It hunts insects and drinks the sweet juice that aphids and other plant-sucking bugs make.
For real!Photo of Brown-black carpenter ant
Picture by April Nobile. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How big is it?

How long is it?

Brown-black carpenter ant about 1.5 cm long (0.59 in)A grain of rice about 6 mm (0.24 in)A toy building brick about 3.2 cm (1.3 in)A crayon about 9 cm (3.5 in)
as long as 2.5 grains of rice in a rowcould run across a dinner table in 6.9 seconds

How big is Brown-black carpenter ant compared to YOU?

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How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

A queen can be up to 18 millimetres long.

2

When danger comes, workers knock fast on the nest walls with their jaws to warn the others.

3

It is very brave against other ants and chases them away from its home.

4

A big colony can have more than 7,000 workers.

5

In winter it can rest for four or five months without waking up.

you asked

Most asked questions about Brown-black carpenter ant

?How big is the brown-black carpenter ant?

Workers are about 7 to 15 millimetres long, and queens up to 18 millimetres.

?Where does the brown-black carpenter ant live?

In sunny woods across Europe, in tree stumps, logs and under stones.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Camponotus ligniperda
Group
Ants
Family
Formicidae
Classification
Insecta > Hymenoptera > Formicidae
Lives on
Europe

Where the facts come from

  1. Camponotus ligniperda (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by April Nobile. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.

More from the same group: Ants

Also at home here: Forests and woods