Exploding Ants Blow Up On Enemies

Nobody can accurately estimate the number of ants in the globe, and this is for good reason—how could anyone possibly know? Even estimates vary greatly, but some place the number at over 100 trillion. Fire ants sting painfully, while bullet ants are infamous for the paint that comes from their bites. But even among ants, exploding ants take the prize for effective self-defense. These little creatures are really on a whole other level, as their name suggests.

Ants have created a variety of unusual and unpleasant strategies to fend off intruders when defending their colony. However, they are all destroyed by a novel and peculiar species of "exploding ant" (Colobopsis explodens). These tree-dwelling ants engage in territorial battle by latching onto their opponents, splitting open their own bodies, and smearing yellow, toxic gunk all over them in an effort to either kill or at least slow them.

These ants, which are native to Borneo, respond to danger in the most spectacular manner imaginable. The ants, known as Colobopsis explodens, can flex their own bodies so hard that they burst, killing them and covering their attack in a sticky and deadly mixture of internal fluids. The procedure will either render the attacker helpless or fatal.