These ants are one of the most effective teams in the natural world
Typically, individuals work less effectively in bigger teams, but weaver ants buck this trend by increasing their power output when they pull together
By James Woodford
12 August 2025
Weaver ants folding paper
Dr Chris Reid, Macquarie University
A chain of weaver ants can easily outpull just about any other creature, pound for pound, making them one of the most formidable teams in the animal kingdom.
Weaver ants , which are found from India to northern Australia, form long chains to pull on leaves to roll them up for building their nests. They lock themselves together by using their mandibles to hold onto the abdomen of the ant in front.
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To determine just how strong they are, Chris Reid at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues offered weaver ants paper leaves instead of real ones to build a nest. They attached a transducer to the tip of the paper leaf to measure the amount of force that groups of up to 17 ants were applying when they rolled up the paper.
The researchers found that individual ants can generate an average of nearly 60 times their own body weight in pulling force, but in a team of 15, each individual was able to pull over 100 times their body weight. This means that the average force contribution per individual almost doubled in the team.
