Watch an Army of Ants Use Teamwork to Take Down a Millipede

Bigger isn’t always better, even in nature’s food chain. Take, for example, the video below, which features a group of tropical ants making a meal out of a millipede. Recorded by scientists in Cambodia and first reported by WIRED, the footage captures the tiny insects as they gang up on the arthropod and band together to paralyze it. Then, the victorious ants link together and form a long, rope-like chain with their bodies to carry the millipede off to its presumed end.

The ants belong to the genus Leptogenys, and they're a type of "swarm raider," according to an article published in the journal Insectes Sociaux, the journal of the International Union for the Study of Social Insects (IUSSI) [PDF]. Leptogenys ants are unique because they hunt millipedes and the occasional earthworm, using their intricate chains to drag away stunned prey weighing up to nearly .60 ounces. A Leptogenys chain can consist of anywhere from two to 52 ants.

In the video below, so many critters participate in the predatory act that their linked formation actually splits into sub-chains, as other insects crowd along the millipede’s sides. Scientists think these stragglers might actually be helping their peers by pushing, pulling, or lifting the millipede.

While impressive, Leptogenys ants are by no means the only animals whose predatory or defensive abilities far exceed their size. For example, larvae of the Epomis ground beetle consume frogs and toads. Honey badgers can fend off packs of lions. And a type of spider wasp called the tarantula hawk will stun a tarantula with its sting then drag it off to a burrow and lay an egg inside it. Nature is filled with tiny surprises, even if they are occasionally brutal ones.

[h/t WIRED]