Honeypot ant

Some ants store food in their bodies.

Special worker ants eat lots of sweet liquid. Their bellies swell up very large. They look like little grapes. These ants stay in one place. They hang from the ceiling of the nest.

Other ants need food when it is hard to find. They touch the big ants with their feelers. This helps the big ants share the food. The honey helps keep the ants healthy. These ants live in dry lands and deserts.

They are very helpful to their whole group.

Some ants use their own bodies to store food.

These ants are called honeypot ants. They have special workers called repletes. These workers eat a lot of liquid food. This makes their abdomens, or bellies, swell up very large. This swelling is called physogastry.

The repletes hang from the nest ceiling. They act like a living pantry for the colony. When other ants need food, they stroke the repletes' antennae. This makes the repletes give up the stored liquid. This way of sharing food is called trophallaxis.

In Australia, some ants live in very dry places.

One type, Camponotus inflatus, has many repletes. In one colony, they made up 49% of the group. These ants live in nests deep underground. The nests can be 1.7 meters deep. The honey inside the ants is special. It has more water than bee honey. It also works against germs like bacteria and mold. For many years, Indigenous Australians have gathered these ants. It is often a social job for women. They dig deep to find the tasty honey.

Honeypot ants are very special insects. They use their own bodies to store food for the whole group. Some ants have special workers called repletes. These workers eat so much liquid that their bellies swell up huge. This extreme swelling is called physogastry.

These ants act like a living pantry or larder. When food is hard to find, the other ants eat from them. This sharing process is called trophallaxis. It helps the colony survive when there is not much to eat.

This amazing way of working happens in steps. First, worker ants find liquid food like nectar. They feed this food to the repletes. The repletes eat until their abdomens become very large. The abdomen has hard plates called sclerites. These plates are joined by a soft, stretchy skin called an arthrodial membrane.

When the ant is empty, the plates overlap. When the ant fills up, the skin stretches wide. The repletes eventually become immobile and hang from the nest ceiling. To get the food out, other ants stroke the repletes' antennae. This causes the repletes to regurgitate the liquid from their crop.

People have studied these ants for a long time. Henry C. McCook first documented them in 1881. Later, William Morton Wheeler described them more in 1908. Many different groups of ants do this. These include the Myrmecocystus in North America and Camponotus in Australia. Other groups like Cataglyphis live in North Africa. Some live in South America or even South Africa. They all have found ways to use their bodies to store energy.

Scientists have found many cool facts about these ants. In Australia, one colony of Camponotus inflatus had 1,063 ants. In that group, 49% were repletes.

The largest replete was 15 millimetres long. It weighed 1.4 grams! Their nests can be very deep. One nest went 1.7 metres down into the ground. The tunnels could stretch 2.4 metres from the entrance. The honey inside them is also unique. It has more water than honey from bees. It even works against bacteria, yeast, and mold.

These ants are also very important to people. In Australia, Indigenous groups like the Warlpiri have stories about them. The place Papunya is named after a honey ant creation story.

Collecting these ants is often a social job for women. They dig deep into the ground to find the tunnels. Some groups use the honey to treat sore throats or skin infections. It is a way for people to connect with the land. The honey ants are a big part of their culture and history.

Honeypot ants are specialized insects that serve as living food storage for their colonies. While many insects, such as honey bees, store liquid food in nests or combs, honeypot ants use their own bodies. This unique biological strategy allows the colony to survive periods when food is scarce. The ants responsible for this storage are specialized workers known as repletes, plerergates, or rotunds. Through a process called physogastry, these workers consume massive amounts of liquid until their abdomens swell enormously. They essentially function as living larders or pantries for the rest of the group.

The mechanism of food storage relies on a specific anatomical structure within the abdomen. The abdomen of species like *Camponotus inflatus* consists of hard plates called dorsal sclerites. These stiff plates are connected by a much softer, flexible tissue known as the arthrodial membrane. When the abdomen is empty, the sclerites overlap and the membrane remains folded. As repletes are fed by other workers, the membrane stretches to its limit. This causes the sclerites to become widely separated and the abdomen to expand.

Once fully engorged, these repletes become mostly immobile and often hang from the ceilings of underground nests. When the colony needs nourishment, other workers perform trophallaxis. This involves stroking the antennae of the replete, which causes the ant to regurgitate the stored liquid from its crop.

Honeypot ants belong to several different genera across the globe. The *Myrmecocystus* genus is found in North America, particularly in the United States and Mexico. In Australia, the *Camponotus* genus exhibits this behavior. Other groups include *Cataglyphis* in North Africa, *Leptomyrmex* in Melanesia, and *Melophorus* in Australia. There are also species like *Anoplolepis* and *Tapinolepis* in South Africa, *Prenolepis* in North America, and *Brachymyrmex* in South America. These various groups have independently adapted to use their bodies for seasonal food security.

Scientific documentation of these ants began in the late 19th century. Henry C. McCook first documented honeypot ants in 1881. Later, the scientist William Morton Wheeler provided further descriptions in 1908. These studies helped researchers understand how different species manage food in harsh environments. Today, scientists continue to study the unique chemistry of the liquid these ants store.

The honey produced by these ants has several distinct chemical properties. Unlike bee honey, honeypot ant honey has a higher moisture content and a lower sugar concentration. It is not made solely from nectar; it also includes metabolites from various plant and animal food sources. The honey is slightly acidic and contains phenolic compounds. Research has shown that it possesses antimicrobial properties against bacteria, yeast, and mold. While it performs differently than Mānuka or jarrah bee honey, it can outperform them against certain specific pathogens.

Detailed observations of *Camponotus inflatus* colonies in Australia provide impressive figures regarding their size and scale. In one studied colony of 1,063 ants, the repletes made up 49% of the population, totaling 516 ants. In another larger colony of 4,019 ants, repletes accounted for 46%, or 1,835 ants. The largest recorded replete measured 15 millimetres in length and had a mass of 1.4 grams. These ants live in complex nests; one nest reached a depth of 1.7 metres with tunnels extending 2.4 metres from the entrance.

These insects hold deep cultural and medicinal significance for Indigenous Australians. For groups such as the Warlpiri, honey ants are central to spiritual beliefs and creation stories. The name of the place Papanya is derived from a honey ant Dreaming story. Collecting these ants is often a social activity for women, who dig up to two metres deep to find the vertical tunnels.

Beyond culture, the honey has practical uses. The Tjupan people use the honey to treat sore throats, colds, and skin infections. Studies from Sydney University confirmed that the honey is effective against the bacterium *Staphylococcus aureus* and fungi like *Aspergillus* and *Cryptococcus*.