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How many ants are crawling on Earth? Researchers estimate

Researchers have made the most thorough assessment to date of the global population of ants - insects that have colonized almost everywhere on the planet - and the estimated total is a mind-blowing 20 quadrillion of them, or approximately 2.5 million for every human.

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There are more than 12,000 known species of ants, which generally are black, brown or red in color and possess bodies segmented into three parts. Ranging in size from about four-hundredths of an inch (1 mm) to about 1.2 inches (3 cm) long, ants typically inhabit soil, leaf litter or decaying plants - and occasionally human kitchens. Ants, whose closest relatives are bees and wasps, are native to nearly everywhere on Earth, as any picnicker knows, except Antarctica, Greenland, Iceland and some island nations.