The Ants, They’re Everywhere

Researchers at the Universities of Hong Kong and Würzburg, Germany have addressed a question that no one asked, “How many ants are there on Earth?” The answer: 20 quadrillion.

It’s difficult to grasp the enormity of such a number. The authors of the study that painstakingly added up the ants call it “20 thousand million millions, or in numerical form, 20,000,000,000,000,000 (20 with 15 zeroes).” The researchers warn that figure is a “conservative” estimate.

It’s not only the numbers that are overwhelming. Consider also the weight: “We further estimate the world's ants collectively constitute about 12 million tons of dry carbon. This exceeds the mass of all the world's wild birds and wild mammals combined. It’s also equal to about one-fifth of the total weight of humans.”

To count the ants, the scientists compiled and analyzed 489 studies from every continent, basically adding up all the previously made estimations from all over the world. 

Ants are important, vital even. They have symbiotic relationships with thousands of plant species that feed and house ants in return for protection and seed dispersal. Humans benefit too: a recent study showed that ants can be more effective than chemical pesticides on the farm. 

But for all their numbers, it is believed that ant and other insect populations are in fact declining around the world. For ants, the best defense against habitat destruction, humans’ incontinent dispersal of chemicals, invasive species, and climate change is the fact there are quadrillions of them.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Photo credit: Francois Brassard