If you have read about the yellow crazy ants’ use of formic acid to blind their prey in a mass attack, and wondered how this is done, here’s your chance to see how that spraying process looks, although the stars of this video are wood ants. All ants spray formic acid. Thus, their scientific family name is well-chosen: formicidae.
VIDEO: When wood ants are disturbed, or attack: it’s time to spray.
Video, 1 min. In the featured image (taken from the video below), a wood ant points its abdomen forward, ready to spray formic acid from the end of its abdomen.
Visit the next page for a link to some far clearer still images of wood ants spraying formic acid, when disturbed.