By, Jacob Sherman The ant that is known as the red harvester ant is an interesting species. The scientific name is Pogonomyrmex Barbatus which is for the red harvester ant. They live in dry desert sort of conditions, like California. The places that they would live in is an exposed open area.
The colony of harvester ants can have up to 10,000 ants in a colony. The queen looks dark red and some orange and is 15mm-17mm long. As for the workers, they are red and orange and 5mm-7mm in length. A colony of red harvester ants can have a colony that is 2.5 to 4.5 meters deep.
Harvester ants have a colony that can be very vast. With this they need food. The way they collect food is by chewing up or grind seeds to a sort of bread. What they do with this is store it in something called a granaries. The seeds that they use are grass seeds. They do eat other foods such as other insects.
The red harvester ant has a strange impact on the ecosystem. The way it impact it is by being eaten. The Horned Lizard eat them, however in some locations the red harvester is being taken out by argentine ants. When this happeneds the horned lizard can’t eat it meal it has evolved to consume.