page_title: Army ant
section_title: Behaviour
hierarchical_section_title: Army ant / Behaviour
caption_attribution_description: English: Safari ants on a march in Kakamega Forest, Kenya. The soldiers have created a tunnel through which the workers move, and clearly show their mandibles.
context_page_description: The name army ant is applied to over 200 ant species in different lineages. Due to their aggressive predatory foraging groups, known as "raids", a huge number of ants forage simultaneously over a certain area.
  Another shared feature is that, unlike most ant species, army ants do not construct permanent nests; an army ant colony moves almost incessantly over the time it exists. All species are members of the true ant family, Formicidae, but several groups have independently evolved the same basic behavioural and ecological syndrome. This syndrome is often referred to as "legionary behaviour", and may be an example of convergent evolution.
  Most New World army ants belong to the subfamily Ecitoninae, which contains two tribes: Cheliomyrmecini and Ecitonini. The former contains only the genus Cheliomyrmex, whereas the latter contains four genera: Neivamyrmex, Nomamyrmex, Labidus, and Eciton. The largest genus is Neivamyrmex, which contains more than 120 species; the most predominant species is Eciton burchellii; its common name "army ant" is considered to be the archetype of the species. Old World army ants are divided between the Aenictini and Dorylini tribes.
caption: Safari ants (Dorylus sp.) on a march in Kakamega Forest, Kenya. The soldiers have created a tunnel through which the workers move, and clearly show their mandibles
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