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The Saharan silver ant (''Cataglyphis bombycina'') is a species of 
The ants often traverse midday temperatures around to scavenge corpses of heat-stricken animals. To cope with such high temperatures, the ants have several unique adaptations.
When traveling at full speed, they use only four of their six legs. This quadrupedal gait is achieved by raising the front pair of legs. Several other adaptations, including a very high stride frequency, make ''C. bombycina'' one of the fastest-walking animal species in relation to their body size.
Keeping track of the position of the sun, the ants are able to navigate, always knowing the direct route back to their nest, thus can minimize their time spent in the heat. A few scouts keep watch and alert the 
In the words of one researcher, the production of this protein "does not reflect an acute response to cellular injury or protein denaturation, but appears to be an adaptive response allowing the organism to perform work at elevated temperatures during temperature changes too abrupt to give the animal an opportunity to benefit from'' de novo'' HSP synthesis," further "the few minutes duration of the foraging frenzy is too short for synthesis of these protective proteins after exposure to heat." This and other adaptations led to the ant being called "one of the most heat-resistant animals known." Its critical thermal maximum is .
Silver ants are covered on the top and sides of their bodies with a coating of uniquely shaped hairs with triangular cross-sections that keep them cool in two ways. These hairs are highly reflective under visible and near-infrared light, i.e., in the region of maximal solar radiation. The hairs are also highly emissive in the midinfrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, where they serve as an antireflection layer that enhances the ants' ability to offload excess heat by thermal radiation, which is emitted from the hot body of the ants to the air. This passive cooling effect works under the full sun. For this, they have inspired research in the field of
insect
Insects (from Latin ') are Hexapoda, hexapod invertebrates of the class (biology), class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body (Insect morphology#Head, head, ...
that lives in the Sahara Desert
The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...
. It is the fastest of the world’s 12,000 known ant
Ants are Eusociality, eusocial insects of the Family (biology), family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the Taxonomy (biology), order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from Vespoidea, vespoid wasp ancestors in the Cre ...
species, clocking a velocity of 855 millimetres per second (over ). It can travel a length 108 times its own body length per second, a feat topped only by two other creatures, the Australian tiger beetle '' Rivacindela hudsoni'' and the California coastal mite '' Paratarsotomus macropalpis''. This is nearly the walking pace of a human being, and compared to its body size would correspond to a speed of about for a tall human runner.
Largely due to the extremely high temperatures of their habitat, but also due to the threat of predators, the ants are active outside their nest for only about ten minutes per day. The twin pressures of predation and temperature restrict their above-ground activity to within a narrow temperature band between that at which predatory lizards
Lizard is the common name used for all squamate reptiles other than snakes (and to a lesser extent amphisbaenians), encompassing over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The ...
cease activity and the ants' own upper threshold.
The ants often traverse midday temperatures around to scavenge corpses of heat-stricken animals. To cope with such high temperatures, the ants have several unique adaptations.
When traveling at full speed, they use only four of their six legs. This quadrupedal gait is achieved by raising the front pair of legs. Several other adaptations, including a very high stride frequency, make ''C. bombycina'' one of the fastest-walking animal species in relation to their body size.
Keeping track of the position of the sun, the ants are able to navigate, always knowing the direct route back to their nest, thus can minimize their time spent in the heat. A few scouts keep watch and alert the colony
A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...
when ant-eating lizards take shelter in their burrows. Then the whole colony, hundreds of ants, leaves to search for food, although they need to complete their work before the temperature reaches , a temperature capable of killing them.
Saharan silver ants produce heat shock proteins (HSPs), but unlike other animals, they do this not in direct response to heat. Instead, they do this before leaving the nest, so they do not suffer the initial damage when their body temperature rises quickly. These HSPs allow cellular functions to continue even at very high body temperatures. If they did not produce the proteins in anticipation of the extreme heat, they would die before the proteins could have their effect.
In the words of one researcher, the production of this protein "does not reflect an acute response to cellular injury or protein denaturation, but appears to be an adaptive response allowing the organism to perform work at elevated temperatures during temperature changes too abrupt to give the animal an opportunity to benefit from'' de novo'' HSP synthesis," further "the few minutes duration of the foraging frenzy is too short for synthesis of these protective proteins after exposure to heat." This and other adaptations led to the ant being called "one of the most heat-resistant animals known." Its critical thermal maximum is .
Silver ants are covered on the top and sides of their bodies with a coating of uniquely shaped hairs with triangular cross-sections that keep them cool in two ways. These hairs are highly reflective under visible and near-infrared light, i.e., in the region of maximal solar radiation. The hairs are also highly emissive in the midinfrared portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, where they serve as an antireflection layer that enhances the ants' ability to offload excess heat by thermal radiation, which is emitted from the hot body of the ants to the air. This passive cooling effect works under the full sun. For this, they have inspired research in the field of passive daytime radiative cooling
Passive daytime radiative cooling (PDRC) (also passive radiative cooling, daytime passive radiative cooling, radiative sky cooling, photonic radiative cooling, and terrestrial radiative cooling) is the use of unpowered, reflective/Emissivity, ther ...
.
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