📸 PhotoPhoto: Hans Hillewaert · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Source
Bullet ant
Paraponera clavata (Bullet ant · サシハリアリ)
Not Evaluated (NE) on the IUCN Red List yet.
💡 Everyday Comparisons for Size, Mass & Speed
- 💡 A length of just over 2 cm is close to the diameter of a Korean 500-won coin (2.65 cm) (Comparison, based on the paper's figure of 'exceeding 2 cm').
- 💡 Research papers explain that studying its venom components can help search for candidate peptides for new medicines or bio-insecticides (Aili et al., 2020).
Reference standards: coach bus ~12 m, mid-size car ~4.9 m, compact car ~1 t, basketball hoop 3.05 m, credit card 8.56 cm.
📖 1. Overview
The bullet ant is a large ant living in the New World tropics, notorious for having the most painful sting among hymenopteran insects.
🦴 2. Anatomy & Morphology
It is a large ant exceeding 2 cm in length. Its venom is most abundant in poneratoxin, a peptide composed of 25 amino acids.
🔍 3. Ecology & Behavior
It is known to have the most painful sting among hymenopteran insects, and its venom excites nerve cells to cause intense pain.
🇰🇷 4. Connection to Korea
No direct record connecting this species to Korea has been found.
📚 Sources & References
- • IUCN Red List: not evaluated (NE) — cross-checked with the Wikidata conservation-status entry
- • catalogueoflife.org — 4D9KY
- • wikidata.org — Q73901
- • commons.wikimedia.org — File:Paraponera clavata.jpg
- • ncbi.nlm.nih.gov — PMC7290781
- • Silhouette: PhyloPic — author not recorded · Public Domain Mark 1.0
Recorded dimensions are widely cited representative estimates from public literature and may vary by study or specimen.