Banded sugar ant 20 cm (8 in) in diameter and usually funnel-shaped and ephemeral. Mounds are not constructed in undisturbed regions where land degradation has not occurred. Instead, the entrance of a nest consists of a smooth-walled vertical shaft that is in diameter. Chambers in the nest have a similar appearance to the nest entrance (shaft-like walls), and the floors within the chambers are typically in length with an arched roof that is in height. Excavated meat ant nests show that banded sugar ants will also inhabit them. Banded sugar ants are the dominant group of nocturnal ants in their range. Workers are
The Ant and the Grasshopper 166 in the Perry Index. It relates that the ant was once a man who was always busy farming. Not satisfied with the results of his own labour, he plundered his neighbours' crops at night. This angered the king of the gods, who turned him into what is now an ant. Yet even though the man had changed his shape, he did not change his habits and to this day goes around the fields gathering the fruits of other people's labour, storing them up for himself. The moral given the fable in old Greek sources was that it is easier