History Main / AntAssault

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': In [[Anime/OnePieceFilmStrongWorld Strong World]], some of the first monsters we see are a horde of literal soldier ants, capable of reducing a sea monster to a skeleton in three seconds flat. They completely ignore [[DemBones Brook]] due to him having no meat on his bones...[[YouAreAlreadyDead and pay dearly for it]].

For obvious reasons, this trope frequently overlaps with StrongAnts. May often be featured as one of the sides in the AntWar. Compare with TermiteTrouble.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': ''ComicBook/KryptoniteNevermore'' has Superman saving ComicBook/LoisLane and her pilot from a swarm of flesh-eating ants.

* ''VideoGame/NetHack'': Ants appear as common monsters, represented by lowercase '''a''' glyph together with [[BeeAfraid bees]] and giant beetles. There are three types of ants in the game: giant ants, the weakest variant of ant enemies; soldier ants, which deal high damage and can [[PoisonousPerson poison your character]]; and the fire ants, which can [[PlayingWithFire set the character on fire]]. They all are very quick and tend to appear in [[ZergRush large groups]], making them very hard to deal with.

[[caption-width-right:350:Not even superheroes are immune to ants]]

* ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'': In three shorts (''Cat Napping'', ''Pup on a Picnic'' and ''Barbecue Brawl''), a marching swarm of ants (whose synchronized marching may cause dangerous vibrations) shows up to cause bother. In the first cartoon, they were used by Jerry to ruin Tom's nap by breaking the hammock with their vibrations, while in the latter two cartoons they show up to collect food from Spike and Tyke's picnics.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rco001_1603400026.jpg]]

* In ''WebAnimation/HappyTreeFriends'', there's a family of ants who frequently torment, try to kill, and, in some cases, [[TheyKilledKennyAgain actually kill]] Sniffles.

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* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius:'' In the side-story "Small Problems", the protagonists have to [[https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20140221 battle]] "giant" ants after being shrunk. Even after being returned to full-size, Zeetha is still being swarmed by them, and jumping into a moat doesn't help, as the ants have scuba gear.
* ''Webcomic/{{Sheldon}}'': In one arc, the house is invaded by a large colony of ants that grows increasingly brazen in its attempts to steal food after the characters' attempts to get rid of them fail to work -- after a while, they become bold enough to openly demand that the others turn over their food, spelling their requests by [[SynchronizedSwarming forming their swarm into letters]].

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* In "The Devourers" in ''[[ComicBook/ConanTheBarbarian Savage Sword of Conan]]'' #182, Conan and his companions find themselves in the path of the Maribunta: a wave of army ants devouring everything in its path. The Maribunta is followed by the villain Moloch, whose caravan travels behind the Maribunta and picks the treasure of the villages that are cleared by the ants.
* The ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comic ''ComicBook/KryptoniteNevermore'' has Superman saving ComicBook/LoisLane and her pilot from a swarm of flesh-eating ants.

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* ''Film/AntMan'': Unsurprisingly since one of Ant-Man's powers is to control ants. Just when Darren Cross is about to shoot the heroes, an army of ants crawls onto his hand and starts biting it.
** In the sequel, when the heroes are captured, Hank Pym tricks Bill Foster into opening an Altoids tin, releasing several giant ants, allowing them to escape.
* Inverted in ''Film/HoneyIShrunkTheKids'', where the kids tame an ant on their way back to the house and it serves them loyally, even [[HeroicSacrifice getting mortally wounded against a scorpion to protect them.]]
* During the Amazon chase sequence in ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheKingdomOfTheCrystalSkull'', Indy's group and the Soviets run into a field full of big and vicious ant colonies. [[TheDragon Antonin Dovchenko]] gets overwhelmed and devoured by a swarm of them.
* In ''Film/TheNakedJungle'' (a loose adaptation of "Literature/LeiningenVersusTheAnts"), the Leiningen South American cocoa plantation is threatened by a 2-mile-wide, 20-mile-long column of army ants.

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** The first time the team morphs into ants as part of an infiltration mission, they nearly got stuck in morph because it turns out the ants have a HiveMind that overrode their own minds.
** During an accidental mission in the Amazon, Rachel falls unconscious in bear morph on top of an army ant colony. Cassie starts ripping out bloody chunks from her and puts on a nearby ant colony so the ants start fighting each other instead of devouring Rachel, lasting long enough that Rachel can jump in the river to get rid of the ants.
* The Creator/HGWells story "Empire of the Ants" depicts a new species of intelligent poison-wielding ant taking over the Amazon, with the expectation that they will eventually conquer the world.
* The short story ''Literature/LeiningenVersusTheAnts'' (1938). A plantation owner in the Brazilian rainforest battles a swarm of soldier (army) ants that are determined to eat him and his workers.
* ''Literature/PrincessesOfThePizzaParlor'': Human-sized ants are a enemy seen in the first story, and [[spoiler:keep reappearing, what with having 7 princesses and a queen for the protagonists to combat, along with making no headway of taking down said leadership for they keep escaping]]. May also be a ''Film/{{Them}}'' reference, given that they are announced with a "Them!".

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* Invoked on ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. One of Glory's minions compares the Knights of Byzantium to an army of ants.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS2E5TheWebPlanet The Web Planet]]", the Animus arrives on the planet Vortis and takes of the native Zarbi--who resemble giant ants--and use them to attack the other native species the Menoptra.

* In the first episode of ''Series/WalkingWithBeasts'', a colony of giant prehistoric ants happens upon a just hatched baby ''Gastornis'', which they proceed to strip to the bone.

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* In the ''Music/{{Rammstein}}'' music video for "Links 234", an ant colony launches a retaliatory attack on a group of beetles that attacked them; the ants use their numbers to overpower the beetles.

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* The last playable chapter in ''VideoGame/AmazonGuardiansOfEden'' features an ant bigger than Jason which will cut him in half and devour him with ease if he gets too close.

** Reptilia, the second level of the game, features army ants as common enemies, with [[GiantMook a giant one]] appearing as a MiniBoss. They wear soldier helmets, attack by [[ThrowDownTheBomblet throwing bouncy grenades]] and drop via flower parachutes, making them ''[[VisualPun literal]]'' army ants.
** Arachnia, the final level of the game, has fire ants appear as enemies. Much like army ants, fire ants also feature a VisualPun in their design; they use [[FireBreathingWeapon flamethrowers]] to breathe fire and wear fireman helmets.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Bugdom}}'', fire ants led by King Thorax are the main antagonists in the game. They kidnapped the ladybugs, inhabitants of Bugdom, and kept them locked in cages. The main character's goal is to defeat their king and free the ladybugs from their captivity.

* The ''Videogame/EarthDefenseForce'' games feature giant ants as some of the first enemies, and hordes of them make up some early missions. Often, the player will be tasked with hunting down an ant queen, or will simply be assaulted by several of them along with their hive. EDF 2025 introduces the crimson ants, who are even harder to kill but show up in just as numerous amounts.

* The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series features several different classes of ant enemies, most of which congregate either around caves which hold their queen/colony or, in one case in ''VideoGame/Fallout3'', their leader the Ant-agonist.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Grounded}}'', ants are some of the most regular enemies the player can encounter. They will demolish the player's encampments to eat any food the player has stored and swarm the player when they get hostile.
* In ''VideoGame/MediEvil'', a side quest has the Witch of the Forest shrink Daniel so that he can collect amber from an anthill. The ants are about as tough as you expect when they’re the same size as you, plus they all spit acid. And naturally, you have to kill their Queen to be able to leave the dungeon.

* In ''VideoGame/NetHack'', ants appear as common monsters, represented by lowercase '''a''' glyph together with [[BeeAfraid bees]] and giant beetles. There are three types of ants in the game: giant ants, the weakest variant of ant enemies; soldier ants, which deal high damage and can [[PoisonousPerson poison your character]]; and the fire ants, which can [[PlayingWithFire set the character on fire]]. They all are very quick and tend to appear in [[ZergRush large groups]], making them very hard to deal with.

* In ''VideoGame/SimAnt'', the player takes the role of the black ant colony which attempts to wipe out the rival red ant colony, take over the yard, and eventually drive the humans out of their house.

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** The first were the Empire Ants which evolve in the early days of Serina's history to be large in both individual size and numbers in the absence of competition and predators. They devoured the giant snails and flightless birds present at the time but they became reliant on these animals for food and [[HoistByTheirOwnPetard when they ate them all]] they began to starve and eventually died off when a species of labybird with parasitic larvae start eating their colonies from the inside out.
** The next arrive million of years later in the form of the Billion Stingers. They have much smaller colonies than the Empire Ants but are still capable of overwhelming and skeltonizing large animals in minutes.
** The last are the Shogghoths who arrive near the end of [[spoiler:Serina's habitable phase]]. They are actually a descendent of the Billion Stingers who take their swarming behavior the it's logical conclusion. By utilizing the bones of their prey as support and their fur and feathers for covering, they form [[TheWormThatWalks large tentacled bodies]] that travel the land in search of more prey.

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* In ''WesternAnimation/GarfieldAndFriends'', two {{Musical Episode}}s revolve around Garfield, Jon, and Odie fending off a group of singing ants. In "The Picnic Panic", they're smart enough to steal and eat all the food from their picnic, even throwing Jon and Garfield into a river. In "Another Ant Episode", they steal all the food from the house, and are able to counter most of an exterminator's methods.

* In three ''WesternAnimation/TomAndJerry'' shorts (''Cat Napping'', ''Pup on a Picnic'' and ''Barbecue Brawl''), a marching swarm of ants (whose synchronized marching may cause dangerous vibrations) shows up to cause bother. In the first cartoon, they were used by Jerry to ruin Tom's nap by breaking the hammock with their vibrations, while in the latter two cartoons they show up to collect food from Spike and Tyke's picnics.

* In the first episode of ''Series/WalkingWithMonsters'', a colony of giant prehistoric ants happens upon a just hatched baby ''Gastornis'', which they proceed to strip to the bone.

!!Examples
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* The ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comic ''ComicBook/KryptoniteNevermore'' has Superman saving Comic book/LoisLane and her pilot from a swarm of flesh-eating ants.

->''Oh we're the ants who ruin your dinner.''
->''We're always here to mess up any day.''
->''When we're around, every camper gets thinner.''
->'''Cause if we get the chance,''
->''we will taaaaake, your food away.''

!!Indexes: InsectIndex, ScaryAnimalsIndex