'''Ants''' are social [[insects]] that live in highly organized colonies that include workers, drones, and [[queen]]s. Considered a highly successful insect, ants have colonized all parts of the world except for [[Greenland]], [[Antarctica]] and [[Iceland]]. Ants are classified part of the ''Hymenoptera'' family of species with [[bee]]s and [[wasp]]s and this similarity is evident in their similar social structure. There are over 12,000 known species of ants in the world [http://atbi.biosci.ohio-state.edu:210/hymenoptera/tsa.sppcount?the_taxon=Formicidae].
There are an estimated 20,000,000,000,000,000, or 20,000 trillion ants on the planet. According to the National Academy of Sciences, a group of scientists from the University of Hong Kong analyzed 489 studies and concluded that the total mass of ants on Earth weighs in at about 12 megatons of dry carbon, a standard way of measuring animals’ biomass. Put another way: If all the ants were plucked from the ground and put on a scale, they would outweigh all the wild birds and mammals put together. For every person, there are about 2.5 million ants.<ref>https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/09/19/ants-population-20-quadrillion/</ref>
== Colony organization ==