© 2025. The Trustees of Indiana University
Copyright Complaints
1229 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, Indiana 47405
News, Arts and Culture from WFIU Public Radio and WTIU Public Television
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Federal funding for public media has been eliminated — we need your help to continue serving south central Indiana
Some web content from Indiana Public Media is unavailable during our transition to a new web publishing platform. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Ants And Their Dead

Has your house ever been under an ant invasion?

First there was just one, and then a few more showed up. Even if you kill those, it seems more and more ants continued to move into my kitchen.

Cleaning Up

Actually, the ants are out to pick up their dead family members, the very ants you killed.

Ants keep a fairly clean house. They carry their waste matter outside of their nest and dispose of it in a pile called a midden. As well as being a kind of dumpster, the midden also functions as a cemetery. Ants transport their dead there in order to protect themselves and their queen from contamination.

This behavior has to do with the way ants communicate with each other via chemicals. When an ant dies, its body releases a chemical called oleic acid. Oleic acid translates to dumpster material for ants, and the other ants were responding to its call.

Read More

Stay Connected