Ant new estimates suggest that nearly 9% of all plant species may have such ant associations. Some plants in fire-prone grassland systems are particularly dependent on ants for their survival and dispersal as the seeds are transported to safety below the ground. Many ant-dispersed seeds have special external structures, elaiosomes, that are sought after by ants as food. A convergence, possibly a form of mimicry, is seen in the eggs of stick insects. They have an edible elaiosome-like structure and are taken into the ant nest where the young hatch. Most ants are predatory and some prey on and obtain food
Saharan silver ant Saharan silver ant The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) is a type of ant that lives in the Sahara Desert. Largely due to the extreme high temperatures of their habitat, but also due to the threat of predators, the ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes per day. The twin pressures of predation and temperature restrict their above-ground activity to within a narrow temperature band between that at which predatory lizards cease activity and the ants' own upper threshold. The ants often traverse midday temperatures around to scavenge corpses of heat-stricken animals. To cope with such