On any given day, you can walk outside and see ants running around your feet. We all know just how strong these insects are, but do you ever start to wonder how much they weigh? We know they’re small, but how many ants are in a pound?
On average, an ant weighs about 3mg. We know that there is about 453593mg in a pound. That means if we wanted a 1-pound bag of ants (and excluded the weight of the bag) we would be able to fit 151,198 ants into it!
Here is a chart that further breaks down more weight additions:
Pounds | How Many Ants |
1 | 151,198 |
2 | 302,395 |
5 | 755,987 |
10 | 1,511,974 |
100 | 15,119,734 |
300 | 45,359,200 |
500 | 75,598,667 |
100 | 151,197,334 |
Can 1 Million Ants Lift A Human?
We know that ants can lift about 3000 times their own body weight. If each ant weighs on average about 3mg, 1 million ants would be able to lift about 9,000,000,000mg or 19,842 pounds. Since the average human weighs about 136 pounds, 1 Million ants can lift a human.
Here is a chart that further breaks down how much ants can lift:
Number of Ants | Amount Lifted (MG) | Amount Lifted (Pounds) |
1 | 9,000 | .02 |
1,000 | 9,000,000 | 20 |
2,000 | 18,000,000 | 40 |
5,000 | 45,000,000 | 99 |
10,000 | 90,000,000 | 198 |
100,000 | 900,000,000 | 1984 |
1,000,000 | 9,000,000,000 | 19842 |
While an average human weighs 136 pounds, you might start racking your brain to calculate how many ants that can pick you up when put together.
For me, it would only take about 10,000 ants!
However, if you were worried ants would sneak under you and carry you off.
Don’t think too far; in this scenario, things don’t work that way.
For a fact, ants can carry a lot, but such items must come in a balanced body mass.
The mass of an entire human being (unless laying down) is far from existing within a mass area that ants can balance.
Sadly enough, the weight of an average toddler standing up would crush and kill them.
Nevertheless, ants have shown excellent capabilities and adaptations for great survival.
We found out that they can lift about 1000-5000 times their original body mass.
A better example of this is a man weighing 220-pounds raising 22000-pounds or a slightly heavier over his head.
Entomologists even suggest that the unique biological makeup of these insects allows them to withstand pressures above their heads that reach up to 5,000 times their weight.
Well, some of it is thanks to their small body size and the fact that they have a much higher muscle mass in proportion to their body mass when compared to humans.
With such powers, ants can carry objects or weights much bigger and heavier than them.
How Much Do Ants Usually Weigh?
Ants usually weigh around 1mg – 5mg per individual. For an average, and most ants, we use that an ant weighs around 3mg. This is a common weight for non-exotic types of ants. You can see some species that weigh up to 400mg!
There are over 12,000 different species of ants identified (with about 5,000 species present alone just in the UK).
These insects appear in different sizes, which further influences their weight.
These critters usually fall between the size ranges of 0.75mm to 52mm.
However, our research reveals the Titanomyrma giganteum (extinct species) as the largest ant species in history, with a size of 6cm.
Also, ants have varying colors, with most appearing as black or red.
There are several hundred ants images on the internet, below we will put some images of ants for you to look at!
What Does 1 Million Ants Weigh?
If each ant weighs around 3mg, 1 million ants would weigh about 3,000,000mg or 6.614 pounds. This is pretty light! You could carry around 1 million ants in your backpack!
A million ants could be seen in a single mound, or in a bunch of satellite colonies throughout a field.
Ants are everywhere on the planet, like humans, and occupy various ecological niches.
Our favorite is canopy ants, who jump around in the trees.
You can find these anywhere (except in Antarctica).
How Many Pounds Of Ants Are There?
From our research, we know there are 1,010,000,000,000,000 ants on the planet at any given time. Since each ant weighs about 3mg, this is 3,030,000,000,000,000mg of ants or 6,680,006,545pounds of ants on earth.
Read more about those calculations above here.
Ants live within colonies; they are found in smaller colonies within their natural habitat (openings and crevices), and super colonies are sited across the world.
Such supercolonies have been seen to have over 300 million independent ants!
Within a colony, you can find one or more queens tasked with egg-laying, and various drones (fertile males), soldiers, and workers.
The workers would often consist of castes of sterile wingless females.
With collective efforts, all individuals support the colony.
The fact that ants have been around for over a hundred million years is thrilling, considering that some insects don’t live past a few days or even hours.
Nevertheless, the Queen can remain alive for close to 30 years.
Final Thoughts
Ants are unique mini beasts you can find in your house or in the wild (tropical ants).
Hence, it is not uncommon for most folks to think about “how many ants are in a pound.”
These critters weigh pretty little, and it takes about 151,198 average-weight ants to make up a pound.