Bullet Ant Facts for Kids

A Picture of a Bullet Ant (paraponera clavata)
  • Common Name: Bullet Ant
  • Kingdom: Animalia
  • Phylum: Arthropoda
  • Class: Insecta
  • Order: Hymenoptera
  • Family: Formicidae
  • Genus: Paraponera

13 Bullet Ant Facts for Kids

  1. A bullet ant is an ant species known for its extremely painful stings.
  2. Bullet ants are members of the Formicidae family and considered a true ant.
  3. The bullet ant was first described in 1775, by Johan Fabricius, a Danish Zoologist.
  4. The binomial name for a bullet is Paraponera clavata.
  5. Bullet ants are sometimes referred to the conga ant or the lesser giant hunting ant.
  6. Bullet ants live in humid lowland rainforests in Central and South America.
  7. Bullet ants are omnivores, they feed on live prey and nectar.
  8. The average size of a bullet ant is between 0.7 and 1.2 inches long.
  9. The bullet ant is considered the world’s largest true ant species.
  10. Unlike other species of ants, the queen of a bullet ant colony is usually not much larger than the workers.
  11. A colony of bullet ants will on average have several hundred ants.
  12. Bullet ant colonies are commonly found at the base of a tree.
  13. A sting from a bullet ant has been compared to the same amount of pain from a gunshot. On the Schmidt sting pain index a bullet ant sting is considered a 4.0+. The pain from a bullet ant sting can last more than 24 hours.

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