Most aquatic ant

The world's most aquatic ant is Polyrhachis sokolova, native to Queensland in Australia, and also Papua New Guinea, and the Island of New Caledonia, which can live, swim and navigate underwater. Ants of this remarkable species nest in submerged mangroves, and survive by hiding in air pockets and then swimming to the surface using their front pair of legs like humans use their arms, but while swimming they are vulnerable to predation by various species of fish, including mudskippers, and are even attacked by intertidal crabs sharing their estuarine habitat. When on the surface of the water, individual ants "walk on water". Whereas certain other ants can swim if need be, no other ant species habitually swims and lives underwater.

This species was formally described by science back in 1902, but its extraordinary aquatic ability remained unknown to zoologists until as recently as 2006, when accidentally discovered by surprised researchers at James Cook University in Townsville, Queensland. They were filming wildlife in a mangrove swamp when they were amazed to watch a Polyrhachis sokolova ant jump off a rock standing like an island in the middle of a large puddle of water and swim away across the puddle to the other side. Further investigations revealed its species' aquatic lifestyle and that swimming behaviour was typical for it.