Are there more ants than people? According to entomologists, there are more than a thousand trillion ants on the planet. In fact, the weight of all the ants in the world is equal to the weight of all the humans. Ants live everywhere around the globe. They are found under logs, in trees, in the stomachs of frogs, and underground. The ant family is highly diverse, with more than 10,000 different species. While some types are relatively small—the smallest ant, for instance, does not grow much larger than the head of a pin—other species can grow as large as a walnut. All ants live in large, highly organized colonies that can last for hundreds of years.

—Nora Gallagher