Carpenter Ants

• Carpenter ants are large ants that burrow in dead and decaying trees. A worker ant typically measures anywhere from a quarter to five-eighths of an inch. Carpenter ants are generally dark or black. They eat living and dead insects and various types of meats and fats. To construct their nest, carpenter ants use their mouths to hollow out dead tree limbs, logs and wood in houses.
  
  

Velvety Tree Ants

• Velvety tree ants are about a quarter inch long and unusually colored. The head and thorax are reddish-brown, while the black abdomen is black and looks velvety in texture. These ants nest high up in wet or rotting wood and are most common in California. Velvety tree ants are particularly aggressive; they will crawl onto and bite a person near their nests. They are also known to squirt an anal gland secretion into the bite marks they leave, making them particularly painful. Trees hosting velvety ant nests will have several holes and active trails of workers crawling on it.
  
  

Acrobat Ants

• Acrobat ants are not known for being particularly gymnastic; rather, they are so named for the way they hold their abdomens slightly above the rest of their body, as if they are engaging in a lifelong balancing act. These ants measure only about an eighth of inch long. They nest in logs, stumps, dead tree limbs and firewood. They may occasionally find their way into the wood of a home if that wood is decaying or particularly moist.
  
  

Parasol Ants

• Parasol ants, also known as leafcutter ants, get their name from their ability to carry leaves much bigger and heavier than they are over their heads like parasols. While they don't nest in trees, they work in and around them to sustain their lifestyle. They are fungus farmers, which means they grow their own food, a type of fungus, in underground gardens. These ants, found in Central and South America and southern North America, travel in very long lines in the forest looking for leaves, which they carry back to their nests. They can carry almost 10 times their weight. They grind up the leaves, add it to feces and other bacteria, and tend to this mass until it forms a fungus, which the ants later eat.