Acrobat Ants

One of the most commonly encountered ants at the CB is the acrobat ant (Crematogaster laeviscula). They are commonly espied on trees, tending aphids on Vernonia baldwinii or Verbesina virginica or wandering around in the house. Generally Crumby has an acrobat ant or two on this very desk where he now sits typing.

Fortunately, these acrobat ants are little concerned with people and don’t seem to bite. Anyway, they have never bitten Crumby despite some rough handling. Alas though, they may nest in the frame of the house, probably not excavating themselves much, but taking over from termites. Mercy!

Your average acrobat ant looks a little like a fire ant, with a red head and thorax plus a black abdomen. But note the pear-shaped abdomen. Then too, it has two prominent spines on the thorax. Crumby reckons they are called acrobat ants because they can elevate the abdomen or rare it up into odd postures.


One of the best places to observe these ants at the CB is in the Texas ash (Fraxinus texensis), especially at night. During the stygian hours thousands if not hundreds of these particular ants can be found marching all over the ash. Here we espy a group of them eating sap. Last night, the Texas ash exhibited these spots of sap and the ants were taking advantage. Crumby does not know if the ants abraded the tree to cause the sap flow. If they did, those ants are ashholes.



Here are some of these same ants on ironweed sucking up to yellow aphids. Crumby has also espied them on the verb virgin with red and black aphids, also sucking up.

Now we all know more about the acrobat ant than we did a while ago.