It’s a pretty fair thing to consider whether ants eat cockroaches or not because ants are known to be omnivores and capable of eating anything. If ants can eat cockroaches you can do both feeding your ant colony and getting rid of cockroaches at the same time.
Do ants eat cockroaches?
Ants do eat cockroaches when they are desperately searching for food and they require protein for their diet. In many cases, ants are likely to eat dead cockroaches, but still, aggressive species can eat living cockroaches.
Naturally, ants are not gonna eat cockroaches every time they encounter each other. So do you think any kind of ant colony will accept foraging cockroaches?
I will be answering all these in this article. Keep reading with me to the bottom.
Can ants eat live cockroaches?
As you may already know ants are tiny insects while cockroaches are at least 15 times larger than them.
In a situation like this, can ants eat live cockroaches?
Ants have the approach of eating live cockroaches when ants are desperately searching for food, especially in a situation where the ant troop is large enough to overpower the cockroach.
In terms of the strength of cockroaches vs ants, cockroaches are very strong and they can lift more than 2xthe weight of their body weight.
Because of this reason, a single or a couple of ants are not enough to take down a cockroach. A punch from a leg or antenna from the cockroach can make the ant fly away and fall off to death or serious injury.
On the other hand, cockroaches can run away 3 to 4 times faster than ants, so it’s not easy to trap a cockroach as an ant.
I did my own observation and research to find out how ants eat live cockroaches. I will tell you everything I found.
So how do ants eat live cockroaches?
Ants have the approach of consuming a cockroach mostly at a time they go for forage, or the ant queen starts laying eggs.
When an ant or a couple of ants find the roach and feel it’s edible, they will try to hang onto its body start stinging the formic acid, and start biting.
Ants sting formic acid over and over again as it’s a vital technique to immobile and paralyze the cockroach before consuming.
Now the most interesting part.
Ants around the roach drag their abdomen through the floor to release the pheromone chemicals on the floor.
It’s a chemical alarm signal that alerts other ants to feed on the cockroach. So more and more ants come to the party and the cockroaches have no chance to escape at the end.
That’s how ants eat cockroaches when they attack a living prey.
Do ants eat cockroaches in the house?
If you walk up in the middle of the night and go to your kitchen, you may find some cockroaches chilling in your kitchen by laying upside down.
Can ants eat these cockroaches in the house?
Even though cockroaches aren’t a specifically targeted food source for ants, ants will eat cockroaches in the house if it is an easy source of food they can find closer to their colony.
By saying that I’m not gonna tell you that ants can take down all the cockroaches in your residence with the time. Actually, ants give less priority to cockroaches as food, because it takes more effort and time to hunt them.
Do ants eat dead cockroaches?
Absolutely! Ants prefer to eat cockroaches when they are dead since ants do not need to have a hard time hunting them and roaches are a great source of protein and fluid.
And the other thing about consuming cockroaches is the ease of eating them. Ants love to eat cockroaches and all the other kinds of roaches as their fleshes are fluid in form.
Why do ants eat cockroaches?
Ants are pretty smart and intelligent compared to the other insects. Therefore ants are very conscious of what they diet.
On top of that, there are specific reasons why ants eat cockroaches. If you are an owner of an ant colony, understanding those things can be important.
- Gives enormous protein to their diet
Cockroaches are rich in protein in their fleshes. Protein is the second most important nutrient for ants. It will help the queen to lay more eggs, quickly grow the larvae, and expand the colony rapidly. Ants tend to eat more cockroaches in the laying season as more energy and protein are required for the colony.
- To get ahead of the competition
The competition for food and other essential sources is commonly seen among animals. Cockroaches are also capable of eating a wide range of organic materials including the same other insects that ants usually rely on. Because of this, ants may tend to prey on the cockroaches living in their area and utilize the resources by themselves.
- Biological pest control
This is a natural process of balancing the population of the pests. Once cockroaches turn out to be an invasion, ants will turn out to be their enemy. This can also be vice-versa. That is the law of nature!
How to feed cockroaches to ants?
Now I’m approaching you as the ant keeper mode. If you really care about your ants and your house, you should feed cockroaches to your ants.
I have previously written about how ants can eat mealworms. In that case, eating a mealworm wasn’t that very easy for ants.
Because there was a somewhat hard exoskeleton and an intestine. But on cockroaches, there aren’t any barriers for eating. I have seen ants eating from the bottom to the head of the roach when somebody throws it on the colony.
Also, you do not need to specifically boil roaches. It’s still perfect when it is normal.
To feed the cockroach to ants, first crush the head of the roach and make sure it can not bite your ants. Then just throw it to the colony.
If you want to store cockroaches longer, just crush them and keep them in the freezer.
But there will be a fact that surprises you!
Even if you crush the head or tear the cockroach into 2 parts, the cockroach can still walk and move from each part.
Do ants eat cockroach eggs?
As we all know ants are opportunistic eaters that literally eat anything they encounter. So do you think that ants eat cockroach eggs?
Ants eat cockroach eggs aka ootheca, with the purpose of consuming the fluid protein it contains and controlling the population of cockroaches by reducing their reproduction.
Can ants keep cockroaches away?
As I have mentioned above, cockroaches are way stronger than ants. The only thing that ants acquire other than a roach is the sting.
But it also can not be considered as a big issue if ants aren’t aggressive enough. Considering all of those circumstances, can ants keep cockroaches away?
Ants can’t keep cockroaches totally away. In fact, a large group of ants can attack and take down a roach for food after a tiring effort. On top of that, using ants to get rid of a cockroach infestation isn’t the best practice to follow.
The biggest challenge for ants before eating the cockroach is to immobilize it. In order to do this, they need to sting the roach as much as possible.
But this stinging process will be more effective as much as the ant being aggressive. Basically, not every household ant species don’t aggressive enough for this.
Ants such as Imported red fire ants, bullet ants, army ants, Argentine ants, and carpenter ants can immobilize and kill a cockroach from stinging and biting.
On the other hand, letting this kind of aggressive ant species such as fire ants to be settled in your house can do more harm than good.
Even if they have some effect on controlling cockroaches because these aggressive ants eat cockroaches, these ants can turn out to be an infestation later.
An ant infestation can be more or equally destructive like a cockroach infestation. Therefore, you have to try using different methods to keep cockroaches away.
Also Read: Do ants eat grasshoppers?
Reference
https://www.quora.com/Do-ants-eat-winged-cockroaches