{"id":236606,"date":"2026-05-19T12:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/236606\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T12:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T12:34:09","slug":"kenya-battles-ant-smuggling-as-giant-harvester-queens-fetch-hundreds-of-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/236606\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya battles ant smuggling as giant harvester queens fetch hundreds of dollars"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ghanaweb.com\/GhanaHomePage\/africa\/Kenya-battles-ant-smuggling-as-giant-harvester-queens-fetch-hundreds-of-dollars-2035191?gallery=1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/66614576.295.jpg\" alt=\"Kenyan wildlife officers sort live queen garden ants being exhibited in court\" title=\"Kenyan wildlife officers sort live queen garden ants being exhibited in court\" width=\"295\" height=\"168\" \/> <\/a>Kenyan wildlife officers sort live queen garden ants being exhibited in court<\/p>\n<p id=\"article-123\">Kenya is confronting an unusual new form of wildlife trafficking: the smuggling of giant African harvester ants.<\/p>\n<p>Outside Nairobi, entomologist Dr Dino Martins points to one of the insects\u2019 sprawling nests.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese are the ants who&#8217;ve now become world-famous because they&#8217;re being traded,\u201d he says. \u201cHere in East Africa, they are very abundant. They&#8217;re one of our most common ants.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But what seems ordinary in the wild has become highly prized among collectors abroad. Queen ants of the species Messor cephalotes can sell for hundreds of dollars online.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I saw the prices people were paying for these ant queens, I was completely in shock,\u201d Martins says, attributing their popularity to their striking red colour, gentle nature, and fascinating social behaviour.<\/p>\n<p>Each colony depends on a single queen, which may live for up to 60 years and produce every ant in the nest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach nest here has just one queen,\u201d he explains. \u201cSo I was really shocked when I saw thousands of queens being collected.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kenyan authorities say the trade amounts to biopiracy and are stepping up efforts to stop traffickers from exploiting one of Africa\u2019s smallest but most remarkable creatures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenyan wildlife officers sort live queen garden ants being exhibited in court Kenya is confronting an unusual new&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":236607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-236606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/236607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}