About the only place in the world where you won’t find any ants is on the summits  of the very highest mountains, So as you might imagine, there are thousands of different kinds of ants and how they live and what they eat depend on the species you are considering.

      Let us see what are some of the unusual eating habits of certain ants. The harvester ant gathers seed from some grass common to the region and Carries them into the nest. Here the seeds are sorted and stored away as the food supply.

         Other ants are dairy farmers. They keep herds of plant lice, or "aphids," as they are called. They milk them by stroking their sides until the sweet liquid which they secrete oozes out. The ants relish this honeydew, or milk, so much that they take excellent care of their "cows.

        Other ants grow fungi and live on nothing else. The fungus which they eat must have something to grow on. So the ants make a paste on which to raise the fungus, or mold.

        Some ants are millers. One variety of ant has a special kind of worker with a huge head. The head holds powerful muscles to work its jaws and do the grinding. This worker ant is really the miller of the colony. It grinds up the grain that is brought in by the ordinary workers. After the harvest season is over, the millers are killed and their heads are bitten off. The reason this is done is the ants want no extra mouths to feed.

      One kind of ant maintains living storehouses of food. As the worker ants bring in the nectar from the flowers, special ants in the colony take it and swallow it. During the Winter, the other ants come to them and receive from their mouths enough nectar to feed themselves and the colony until the next season.