There are 20,000,000,000,000,000 ants crawling all over Earth

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A new study estimates there are 20 quadrillion individual ants across the globe, which together weigh more than all wild birds and mammals combined

To provide an answer, they compiled data from 489 studies that measured ant densities in different parts of the world using standardised methods. They extrapolated this data to estimate there are approximately 20,000,000,000,000,000, or 20 quadrillion, ants across the globe.The total biomass of this global ant population – the collective weight of carbon in all the individuals – is about 12 million tonnes.

Previous estimates of the number of ants on Earth were “essentially educated guesses” that extrapolated from ant densities measured in one or two locations, says Schultheiss. The latest analysis aimed to be more accurate by looking at studies from all continents and written in different languages.There are still gaps in our knowledge, however, because most ant counts have been conducted on the ground, rather than in trees or underground, says Schultheiss.

There are 15,700 known species and subspecies of ants. The insects are vital to most ecosystems because of their roles in dispersing seeds, increasing nutrient availability via soil turnover and providing food for ant-eating animals.“With this study, we provide a baseline for the global distribution of the number of ants and the biomass, and in the future we could do repeat studies in the same places using the same methods to see what has changed,” she says.

 

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Nah,I'm not having that!! I know there's a lot of ants but seriously! They weigh more than all the birds and all the mammals combined!? Nah,the more I think about it the more I have to say Nah!! Pull the other one!

It network gears churning

Loads of them are in my garden

There are 20,000,000,000,000,000 scientists crawling all over Earth.

Who counted them?

I said to myself ' What number is that?'

The ants go marching 20,000,000,000,000 by 20,000,000,000,000 hurrah hurrah

Thats alot of legs

I've talked to the ants and they are going to start weight watchers and cardio at least 3 times a week.

Can you put that number in words?! Curious

Wow!

I feel like someone got tired of counting and just rounded up 🙃

20 petaants

How do we know that? Are they sure?

And the meek shall inherit the Earth, good luck to them, can’t do any worse than the “most intelligent species”.

Ant eaters ain't doing their jobs!!!

A large proportion of them are living in my garden, busily moving cyclamen around.

Ants... not elementary particles? 😠

Let us hope they stay peaceful

So culling cattle is ok?

2 × 10^16

Thanks science

how many co2 they produce? we should kill all of them if we want stop climate change .....

It’s a good thing that they are tasty.

20 trillion or 20 quadrillion.

I want to know who counted them all.

Sounds like a fantastic food supply to the minds atop the WEF, I’m sure.

I think there could be a few more than that.

Do spiders next

Yeah...but...if it came to a fight my money`s on bacteria...

I think I've got about a quarter of them under the stepping stones in my garden

I can't ever said that amount out loud.

Godamn fuckin ants for the dub

Haha. It should be more than quatrillionth

ok....cool fact but does nothing for me.

raid

I don’t understand! Please clarify. Humans r mammals, but don’t count because they’re not wild? If that’s true, then does that mean that dogs, cats, horses, cows etc don’t count as well? I know that it once once thought that ants outweighed humans, but there’s more humans now.

No wonder… always thought there’s too many ants 🐜 on my way home… Too….. Many………

According to PNAS, there are a total of 20 quadrillion ants in the world. These scientists have also calculated what their weight is. Weight is measured in amount of dry carbon; which, in the case of ants, is about half of the total. The figure is 12 million tons of dry carbon.

how many colonies does this translate into? 🐜 🐜 🐜

Flippy says 'well now I don't have to feel so bad about cheating on my diet'

We are doomed !

Go the 🐜 ants.

I can't get my head to grasp a quadrillion. Can someone please break it down?😟

Obviously, we need to breed more anteaters!

this fact has big CUE_Cards energy

Anyone done the equivalent ant meme for 30-50 feral hogs?

All twenty quadrillion of these mfers managed to find the dog food can lid I forgot to rinse off.

that's a of methane 😏😉

Informative.

DanRiehl Who was in charge of THAT census? I bet that was a daunting task!

Bullshit

Most of them are in my shed.

There is no way

Where are the uncles?

How do you get this number? The ants are countless in numbers.

Who counted the ants? What a job. 'What do you do daddy?' 'I'm a professional ant counter.'

I thought it was the spiders

Please show us how they worked that out. It’s not science if you don’t show us how they got to that result.

I demand a recount.

How did they calculate that?

⚠️ God has said in the Quran: 🔴 { O mankind, worship your Lord, who created you and those before you, that you may become righteous - ( 2:21 )} 📖Quran 🎬 To view the video fully 👇

20×10^16?

Hurrah, hurrah.

Good counting Camara.

This is amazing

Just imagine that queue when their queen dies!!!

So ants are basically helping to crush carbon into diamonds way down in the earths core. Neat.

you have no fucking idea

after biting, skin will get red and itch. so, I destroyed the ant nests in my backyard with boiling water and insecticides

I feel like I got about 1/4 of them taking over my backyard right now

Maybe they should run things. I think we’ve messed it up.

Through my kitchen

they shall inherit the earth

Do the pet budgies tip the scales then?

Shout out to the people who had to count them 💪 😬😊

BS how do you count them

Twenty quadrillion? Is that a number?

😳😳

Blimey that must have taken ages to count the little buggers...

Who counted ?

Ants move around all the time, how do we know each one was counted only once; what if some ants were counted more than once? Maybe there should be a recount, and ask all the ants to remain still till the recount is finished.

I think most of them are in my yard! 😂🤣

The world has an inexhaustible food source, and there is enough for everyone, Yahweh Tsebaoth did not create this world in vain, he created it to be inhabited by the children of men, even if the human population met the same number reported as today's ant population.

How did the scientists calculate this exact amount?

What? For every human there are 2.2 milion ants? Each ant 0.1 gram and that makes ants' mass at least two Times that of all humans on earth. That is awsome! Good ants💗

Thats a nice round number?

I always wonder how do we know how many ants there are? It's impossible to count..

I just found another three behind my toaster, so you might want to adjust that number.

Who counted them all?

C'est une nation cree comme nous :un regime et un mode de vie car elle ne comporte pas un plafond fixe mais un plafond flexible ;ses mouvements dans le biosysteme terrestre se rapportent a perception consciente cree par un grand createur ...

Ants are cool!

Fact_Backup

🥺Ants will be the last organized colonies on planet earth💙🐜🌋

My friend Arcan will be thrilled about this ( she is not 100 % human)

What happened to higher CO2 ppm killing off the planet? Ants doing just fine! FrankWi74044551

And at any given time, a third of them are actively invading my house.

Yuck

I Just realized that only stupid human pay for living. Non animals and insects pay any taxes or Paying rent

Is zillion a number?

And all of them probably farting Global Warming causing methane into the air no doubt. The REAL problem. (joke)

And most of them are in my backyard

Yeah you know they going to add ants 🐜 to our food supply, right 😅 for “protein”

Well, Id hate to be Earth right now then

In front yard an ant colony has lived for at least two decades. Not an ant has been found in house. Vinegar water sprayed in house ever so often. Please note new neighbor put killer chemical on it without permission.

And there hugh stregth do lot of good work for us

I would hate to be the guy on his hands and knees having to count them all.🤔🤣, can't be good ant his job as they rounded it off.

How you'll counted them There are many ants in my house. You will count them

let's given them names. individually. I found one, I named it ' lil'bobby'

Apparently each ant had to give consent to the census count

48 trillion and one, 48 trillion and 2, 48 trillion and.... bugger lost count. One , two, three...

That’s likely not accurate. There’s at least that many between my house and my neighbor’s fence row.

Plus or minus 23..

Kudos to the scientists who counted them all

Don’t tell the left! They’ll have us eating them too!!

Who counts it..?

I, for one, welcome our ant overlords

And now they’re in your brain.

Might be more accurate to say an estimated amount. A little misleading to assume an exact number in the header.

That’s 20 gazillion, right? 🤔

they're all in my kitchen

That's just a random guess. There's no way they can actually count this.

That's quite precise. One of them might have died since your tweet.

Imagine how many there are in the universe.

Maaaan how could anyone no this FOH

Kudos to the poor guy who had to count them all!

19,999,999,999,999,999 now, oops.

👀

Who counted them?

Fake news. I don’t believe anyone has actually counted them. Seems too round a figure for a start.

....or 20 quadrillion.

How many leiningens?

Epic! That's integration at its finest. They get on with life without fucking everyone else off. They contribute but do so with seamless grace.

Let’s eat them then

I like ants

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