# Do ants ever eat people (or animals) alive? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 7, 2006, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277 "2006-12-07T22:36:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bbs2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@bbs2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bbs2k)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/21 "2006-12-09T02:27:27Z")
[QUOTE=pool] The most interesting part of the documentary was the very aggressive bull ants of Australia. [/QUOTE] I did see that show, it was amazing. Those types of ants though, [terrifying](http://www.geocities.com/brisbane_ants/images/wpeC3.jpg). Highly recommended documentary, especially for anyone interested in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/22 "2006-12-09T04:50:28Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] In the 1954 film [_The Naked Jungle_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Jungle), Charlton Heston’s South American coffee plantation is threatened by swarming _marabunta_ army ants. [/QUOTE] That’s one of my favorite hokey jungle movies. The \*marabunta \* aren’t merely army ants, but are sort of a cross with leaf-cutter ants. They not only eat animals, they also strip all the vegetation from the hills as they swarm across the landscape. My favorite scene is where Heston has tried to defend his plantation with a water filled ditch, and the ants make little boats out of leaves and sail across it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sonia\_Montdore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Sonia\_Montdore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sonia_Montdore)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/23 "2006-12-09T05:03:15Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] That’s one of my favorite hokey jungle movies. The \*marabunta \* aren’t merely army ants, but are sort of a cross with leaf-cutter ants. They not only eat animals, they also strip all the vegetation from the hills as they swarm across the landscape. My favorite scene is where Heston has tried to defend his plantation with a water filled ditch, and the ants make little boats out of leaves and sail across it. 🙂 [/QUOTE] This movie is one of my guilty pleasures. I _love_ the scene whrn Heston hammily confesses his virginity to Eleanor Parker. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/24 "2006-12-09T15:08:50Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] That’s one of my favorite hokey jungle movies. The \*marabunta \* aren’t merely army ants, but are sort of a cross with leaf-cutter ants. They not only eat animals, they also strip all the vegetation from the hills as they swarm across the landscape. My favorite scene is where Heston has tried to defend his plantation with a water filled ditch, and the ants make little boats out of leaves and sail across it. 🙂 [/QUOTE] What I like best was the opener – on the screen flashes, “SOUTH AMERICA” – like it’s all one country . . . ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/25 "2006-12-09T16:13:53Z")
This is veering into Cafe Society territory, but I once used several clips from _The Naked Jungle_ in an exhibition on tropical rainforests, in a video on popular images of the rainforest. Those clips, along with some from Indiana Jones and King Solomon’s Mines, depicted the image of “the jungle” as an impossibly dangerous and implacably hostile place. One of the clips we used was the one in which the sterotypical fat lazy Latin American foreman, who is supposed to be on guard at the ditch to keep out the marabunta, of course decides to take a siesta and awakes shrieking covered in ants. I also like the scene in which the marabunta swarm, which is miles across, appears on a distant hillside and the entire tropical forest melts away as they munch it down. Evidently marabunta are part termite too. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/26 "2006-12-09T18:30:29Z")
If memory serves me right ,I saw an ant program that said during village history,some peple have been killed. Infirm ,living alone,babies and passed out drunks. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/27 "2006-12-09T18:35:36Z")
[Ants of medical importance - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_ant) They say so too. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/28 "2006-12-09T19:28:49Z")
I read the OP yesterday, then watched Discovery Channel “I Shouldn’t Be Alive” in which they answered the question. A guy in Africa injured and sleeping woke up to find driver ants feeding on his arm. So, yes they will eat a person that is alive. Additionaly the show stated that the driver ant is the only insect that will eat a human (those were their words, not sure if correct). ---
**Author:** ![Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Alive\_At\_Both\_Ends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alive_At_Both_Ends)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/29 "2006-12-09T19:43:15Z")
[QUOTE=fluiddruid] Please make sure that you make sure that quotes from a third party are… \ [/QUOTE] Actually we only need to make sure of this. We don’t really need to make sure that we make sure of it. Though I suppose if we want to be really sure, we could make sure that we make sure that we make sure. Sorry. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277/30 "2006-12-09T19:49:51Z")
[QUOTE=RaftPeople] Additionaly the show stated that the driver ant is the only insect that will eat a human (those were their words, not sure if correct). [/QUOTE] Swarming driver ants may be the only insects capable of eating an entire human, but larvae of the human bot-fly and some other parasites certainly eat living human flesh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-ever-eat-people-or-animals-alive/383277.md?page=1)