Distribution
Like several other invasive ants, such as the red imported fire ant, the big-headed ant, the little fire ant, and the Argentine ant, this is a "tramp ant", a species that easily becomes established and dominant in new habitat due to traits such as aggression toward other ant species, little aggression toward members of its own species, efficient recruitment, and large colony size.Also known as the long-legged ant or Maldive ant, it is on a list of "one hundred of the world's worst invasive species" formulated by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. It has invaded ecosystems from Hawaii to Seychelles, and formed supercolonies on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean.
Food
''A. gracilipes'' has been described as a "scavenging predator" and has a broad diet, a characteristic of many invasive species. It consumes a wide variety of foods, including grains, seeds, arthropods, and decaying matter, including vertebrate corpses. They have been reported to attack and dismember invertebrates such as small isopods, myriapods, molluscs, arachnids, land crabs, earthworms and insects.Like all ants, ''A. gracilipes'' requires a protein-rich food source for the queen to lay eggs and carbohydrates as energy for the workers. They get their carbohydrates from plant nectar and honeydew producing insects, especially scale insects, aphids, and other Sternorrhyncha. Studies indicate that crazy ants rely so much on the scale insects that scarcity of them can actually limit ant population growth.
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