‘Queens of highway’: Ants in Taiwan hitch rides on cars to spread colonies

Over six years, researchers documented 52 cases of ants hitching rides on vehicles in Taiwan, with invasive species spreading the most during warmer seasons.Insects like ants are adept at navigating various environments. Now, it appears they have mastered the art of hitchhiking as well. The ants gang up with their whole family and hop onto a car. Then they strive to find a new place to build their own home.

They categorized the ant species into arboreal, semi-arboreal, and ground-dwelling functional groups based on their nesting sites and foraging habits.The researchers documented 52 cases of active ant hitchhiking on cars between 2017 to 2023. Most of these were reported from Northern and Central Taiwan.

They mentioned one popular species—the black cocoa ant—which constituted nearly 60% of the reported cases. They explained that the parking duration of the vehicles on which the ants hitchhiked varied from a few hours to over a month. Over half of the hitchhiking incidents occurred within a day.

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