Odorous house ants are small brown or black ants that nest in various habitats both outdoors and inside homes. They communicate and care for their young through chemical signals and touch. While they farm honeydew-producing insects, odorous house ants are also pests that can damage homes and crops. They defend themselves against predators through aggressive behavior and secreted chemicals.

1. Odorous House Ant
(Tapinoma sessile)

2. Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Hymenoptera
Family: Formicidae
Subfamily: Dolichoderinae
Genus: Tapinoma
Species: T. sessile
Binomial name
Tapinoma sessile
Say, 1917

3. What are Ants?
• eusocial insects of the family Formicidae and,
along with the related wasps and bees, belong to
the order Hymenoptera.
• evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-
Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million
years ago
• 2013 study :sister group of the Apoidea.

4. • Tapinoma sessile is a species of ant that
goes by the common names odorous house
ant, stink ant, and coconut ant.
• Their colonies are polydomous and
polygynous
What are Odorous House
Ants?

5. …its structure?
 exoskeleton
 The head, mesosoma,
and metasoma are the
three distinct body
segments.
 ranges in color from brown
to black, and varies in
length from 1/16 to
1/8 inches (1.5–3.2 mm).
 Their antennae have 12
segments.
A side view of the body
of the ant. It shows that
the gaster part of the
abdomen is directly on
the petiole.

6. Head
• contains many sensory organs.
• have compound eyes made from numerous
tiny lenses attached together.
Antennae
Two antennae ("feelers") are attached to the head;
these organs detect chemicals, air currents, and
vibrations; they also are used to transmit and receive
signals through touch.

7. • All six legs are attached to
the mesosoma ("thorax") and terminate
in a hooked claw.
• Only reproductive ants, queens, and
males, have wings
Legs
Wings

8.  Don’t have lungs but they have
spiracles
Insects also lack closed
blood vessels;
They have "dorsal
aorta“
pumps hemolymph
consists of a ventral nerve cord that runs
the length of the body,
with several ganglia and branches along
the way reaching into the extremities of
the appendages.[
Respiratory System
Circulatory System Nervous System

9. How do they grow? • Odorous house ants go through an
egg, larvae, pupae, and adult stage.
• Eggs are laid from late April until
cold weather begins, usually in
November.
• Eggs hatch after 11 to 26 days. The
larval stage takes 13 to 29 days,
• the prepupal stage takes 2 to 3 days,
• the pupal stage lasts anywhere from
8 to 28 days, averaging about 14
days in the summer.
Hymenoptera (ants, bees, and wasps)
have a haplodiploid sex-determination
system.
•Development - Life Cycle
•metamorphosis

10. How do they reproduce?
Mating likely takes place both
inside and outside the nest.
Winged females appear in the
middle of June or July, males
appear shortly before..
• Queens can lay up to 20 or
30 eggs in a day,
•Mating System
•eusocial

11. Where do they live?
• Members of are generalized
foragers,
nesting in a wide variety of habitats,
ranging from grasslands, open fields,
woodlands, to inside buildings.
The majority of species nest in the
ground under objects such as stones
or tree logs, other species build nests
under bark of logs and stumps, in
plant cavities, insect galls or refuse
piles.[

12. What do they eat?
An ant has two stomachs.
One is for food for himself. The other is for food that he will share with the other ants
They forage mainly for honeydew, which is produced by aphids and scale insects as
well as floral nectar and other sugary foods.
Primary Diet
• omnivore
• Animal Foods
• insects
• terrestrial non-insect arthropods
• Plant Foods
• nectar
• sap or other plant fluids
Human Food

13. What eats them and how do they avoid being eaten?
Known Predators
• birds (Aves)
• northern flickers (Colaptes auratus)
• black-billed magpies (Pica hudsonia)
• chimney swifts (Chaetura pelagica)
• American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos)
• red shafted flickers (Colaptes cafer
collaris)
• house sparrows (Passus domesticus)
• larval antlions (Myrmeleontidae)
• toads
To defend themselves, odorous house
ants secrete defensive chemicals and
are physically aggressive towards
predators and other ant species.

14. How do they communicate with each other?
•Communication Channels
•visual
•tactile
•Chemical
•Other Communication
• Modes
•Pheromones
•Perception Channels
•visual
•tactile
•chemical

15. Do they cause problems?
• Odorous house ants are significant pests
to homes and buildings
• dorous house ants indirectly cause crop
and other plant damage.
How do they interact with us?
There are no known positive effects of
odorous house ants on humans.

16. What roles do they have in the ecosystem?
• Odorous house ants farm
honeydew-producing insects,
• In exchange for the honeydew, ants
protect the honeydew producers
from predators and parasitoids.
• mutualistic relationships with these
insects, including membracids
,aphids), scale insects and butterfly
larvae

17. Actual Pictures

20. Actual Footages
Video clip #1
Video clip # 2

21. References:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapinoma_sessile
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant
• http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/Tapinoma_sessile/