How Do Ants Communicate?
Ants communicate mostly with chemicals called pheromones, which they smell through their antennae. These scents raise alarms, recruit help and tell nestmates from intruders. Ants also pass messages by touch, by sharing food mouth to mouth and, in some species, by making squeaks too faint for people to hear.
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Pheromones Do Most of the Talking
An ant colony runs on smell. Glands in the head and abdomen release different pheromones, and each one carries a set meaning. One says "danger," another says "come help," and others identify the queen or mark where the colony lives. Ants pick these up with their antennae, which work as noses.
Many ants see poorly, and many live in total darkness underground, so scent beats sight for nearly every message. The best-known example is the trail to food, which other ants follow in a line. That is only one signal among many, though, and most of the colony's chatter never shows up on your kitchen counter.
How Ants Talk With Each Signal
Each channel ants use suits a different kind of message. This table shows how ants send each signal and what it tells the ants that receive it.
| Signal | How ants send it | What it tells other ants |
|---|---|---|
| Alarm pheromone | Released from glands when an ant is crushed or threatened | Attack, defend the nest or flee |
| Trail pheromone | Dabbed on the ground by a returning scout | Food or water lies this way |
| Colony scent | Carried in the waxy coat on every ant's body | This ant belongs here, or it doesn't |
| Death scent | Builds up on an ant's body after it dies | Carry this one out of the nest |
| Antenna tapping | Touching and stroking another ant | Who are you, and do you need food? |
| Food sharing | Passing liquid food mouth to mouth | Colony news and chemical signals spread |
| Squeaking | Rubbing a ridged body segment against a scraper | Help, I'm trapped, or a find worth sharing |
How Fire Ants Sound the Alarm
Anyone who has stepped on a fire ant mound in a DFW yard has seen alarm pheromone at work. Within seconds, hundreds of workers pour out and climb whatever disturbed the nest. A crushed or threatened worker releases a scent from glands near its jaws, and every ant that smells it joins the defense.
Fire ants need only a tiny amount of it. USDA researchers who identified the fire ant alarm pheromone found that each worker carries only a trace, about 300 trillionths of a gram. Nestmates respond to even tinier doses. The chemical had resisted identification for about four decades before their work. That sensitivity explains why one careless step can set off an entire mound in the spring and fall, when fire ants are busiest in DFW lawns.
Telling Nestmates From Strangers
Every ant carries a thin, waxy coating on its body, and each colony's coating has its own scent blend. When two ants meet, they tap each other with their antennae and compare. A match means a nestmate. A mismatch at the nest entrance can start a fight, which is why neighboring colonies of the same species still battle over territory.
Ants even read death by smell. In a classic 1958 experiment, biologist E.O. Wilson and his colleagues found that ants carry nestmates out of the nest once a fatty acid builds up on their bodies after death. When the researchers dabbed that chemical on living ants, their nestmates hauled them out to the trash pile anyway.
Touch and Shared Meals
Ants touch constantly. Workers stroke each other's heads with their antennae to beg for food, check identity and prompt a response. A forager returning with food often stops to feed nestmates, passing liquid from its crop, a pouch that holds food for sharing.
That food sharing does more than feed the colony. It spreads the colony scent and other chemical signals from ant to ant, so news and nutrition travel together. It also explains why slow-acting baits work on ants that sprays miss. Workers share the bait the same way they share food, and it reaches the queen deep in the nest. Our ant control for DFW homes relies on that habit rather than spraying the trail.
Ants That Squeak
Some ants talk with sound. They rub a ridged file on one body segment against a scraper on the next, a process called stridulation, which makes a squeak most people can't hear. Ants don't have ears, so they feel the sound as vibration through their legs instead.
Leafcutter ants use this signal in an emergency. When part of a nest collapses, buried workers stridulate, and nestmates above dig toward the vibration to free them. The Texas leafcutter ant, which lives in Central and East Texas, belongs to this group. Fire ants and many other ants in the same family can stridulate too.
Fire ant mounds near a play area need a fix that reaches the colony. Our Dallas office handles fire ant and ant treatment in Dallas with baits that turn the colony's food sharing against it.
Ant Communication FAQ
Can ants hear sounds?
Not the way people do. Ants have no ears, but they sense vibrations through their legs and bodies. That lets them pick up the squeaks of stridulating nestmates and the footsteps of animals near the nest.
Why do ants touch each other when they meet?
They are checking identity and trading information. Antenna contact lets an ant smell the other ant's colony scent, and it often leads to a request for food.
Do ants from different colonies understand each other?
Ants of the same species use the same basic signals, so they recognize alarm and trail scents from another colony. Their colony scents differ, though, so they usually treat each other as enemies.
New mounds across the lawn after each rain mean the colonies below are growing. Ask for a price online or call the office, and we'll set out baits the colony carries home.
