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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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Ants generally live in colonies, sometimes consisting of millions of them divided into groups with different roles such as workers, soldiers, and queens. The workers, all females, care for the bigger queen and her offspring, maintain the nest, and forage for food. Males mate with queens, then die. "Some ants can certainly be very annoying, but that's a very human-centered perspective," Schultheiss said. "Most ants are actually highly beneficial, even to us humans," Schultheiss added. "Think about the amount of organic matter that 20 quadrillion ants transport, remove, recycle and eat. In fact, ants are so essential for the smooth working of biological processes that they can be seen as ecosystem engineers. The late ant scientist E.O. Wilson once called them 'the little things that run the world.'"