Size: 1/16 to 1/2 inch (1.5-2mm)

Color: Reddish Brown

Pharaoh ants are very small and feed on sweets such as sugar syrups, fruit juices, jellies, cakes and fruit pies as well as greases. Although Pharoah Ants feed on sweets, it is believed that they prefer fatty foods.

This ant is a serious nuisance in hospitals, rest homes, apartment dwellings, hotels, grocery stores, food establishments, etc. They feed on jellies, honey, shortening, peanut butter, corn syrup, fruit juices, soft drinks, greases, dead insects and even shoe polish. They have been found in surgical wounds, I.V. glucose solutions and sealed packs of sterile dressing in hospitals. These ants are capable of mechanically transmitting diseases, Staphylecoccus and Psuedomonas infections in hospitals. Workers are very small about 1/16 inch long, light yellow to reddish-brown colored with the hind portion of the abdomen somewhat darker. The petiole has two nodes and the thorax is spineless. The antennae has 12 segments with the antennal club composed of three segments.

Life Cycle

Female Pharaoh ants can lay 400 or more eggs in her lifetime. Most lay 10 to 12 eggs per batch in the early days of egg production and only four to seven eggs per batch later. At 80°F (27°C) and 80 percent relative humidity, eggs hatch in five to seven days. The larval period is 18 to 19 days, prepupal period three days and pupal period nine days. About four more days are required to produce sexual female and male forms. The entire life cycle takes about 38 to 45 days depending on temperature and relative humidity. Unlike most ants, they breed continuously throughout the year in heated buildings and mating occurs in the nest. A single queen can produce many hundreds of workers in a few months. Mature colonies contain several queens, winged males, sterile females or workers, eggs, larvae, prepupae and pupae growing to as large as 2,500 or more members. Unicoloniality means that contiguous colonies can give the impression of massive colony size, when in fact one is observing a supercolony which may contain many hundreds of thousands of individuals from dozens of smaller, separate colonies.

Pharaoh ants engage in a behavior pattern known as "satelliting," "fractionating" or more usually "budding". Part of the colony migrates to a new location, which contrasts with the more common mechanism of colony reproduction where single females disperse and independently found colonies after a reproductive swarm. A queen together with a few workers carrying immatures (eggs, larvae and pupae) leave the nest and set up a new colony elsewhere. Budding is a major factor in the rapid spread of infestations.

Nests can be very small for example, located between sheets of paper, in clothing or laundry, furniture, foods, etc. Nests usually occur in walloids, under floors, behind baseboards, in trash containers, under stones, in cement or stone wall voids, in linens, light fixtures, etc. They prefer dark, warm areas near hot water pipes and heating tapes, in bathrooms, kitchens, intensive care units, operating rooms, etc. They are "trail-making" ants and often are found foraging in drains, toilets, washbasins, bedpans and other unsanitary sites as well as in sealed packs of sterile dressing, intravenous drip systems, on surgical wounds, food and medical equipment.