UN-BEE-LIEVABLE!

Super-strong ant uses jaws to lift insect 40 times its own weight

IF you’ve ever bumbled home loaded down with heavy shopping, spare a thought for this little red weaver ant.

It managed to balance a dead bee many times its own size in its jaws as it stood upon a thin twig.

It’s all the more remarkable because the weaver ant weighs around 5mg – that’s 0.00018 of an ounce – and a typical bee is up to 200mg, or a hefty 0.007 of an ounce.

In other words, the bee is about 40 times the weight of the ant. A short while later some more weaver ants, which can carry loads up to 100 times their own weight, arrived to help him bear the prize back to their nest.

Photographer Eko Adiyanto, 4 , spotted the scene in the front garden of his home in West Java, Indonesia. He said: ‘These ants are small animals but have enormous strength and are able to work together.’