Many interactions between species have winners and losers: one individual benefits, and the other one suffers. These are called negative species interactions. For example, predation is a type of species interaction in which one organism (a predator) eats another organism (the prey)—this is good for the predator but very bad for the prey! Different ant species can eat many different things, and some ants are important predators. Predatory ants often eat other insects like termites and caterpillars, while other ants eat only plants or fungus. Megaponera ants have only one food—termites—and these ants organize huge hunts in which worker ants infiltrate termite colonies, capture as many termites as they can carry, and bring the termites back to the ant nest to feed to their larvae. But even though many ants are predators, they can also be prey for other animals. Lots of animals like to eat ants: birds, ant eaters, even humans in some parts of the world! An animal that eats ants is called a myrmecophagous animal. The authors of this paper have eaten ant larvae that were specially prepared, and we can confirm that they are both delicious and nutritious.

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