In walking limbs, the range of motion and control decreases as you move away from the body. In limbs made for manipulation things are less consistent. The human shoulder is a lot like the coxa in ants, it allows a wide range of movements in multiple dimensions. The elbow only allows one dimension of motion.

Ants have many more joints after that but they are like a stiff chain, no fine control. However, ants can flex their claws and expand and retract their foot pads.

Ants use their front two legs differently from the back legs. They may use these limbs to dig or hold objects in place when manipulating them with their mandibles. The coxa of the front leg is often longer while all of the other segments are shorter. Ants have a comb on their front legs which they use for grooming—

I don’t think the front legs are used for manipulation in enough ways to have that be their primary purpose but there is a distinction that makes them more like “arms”

@futurebird
from what I know, humans are rather unusual among mammals in the flexibility of our shoulder joints; dogs, horses, cattle, deer, etc, don't have nearly as much flexibility. Mainly it's aboreal (and some scansorial) mammals that have as much shoulder flexibility as humans. (And also bats. And I don't know about aquatic mammals.) The same is true of wrist and ankle rotation.

@futurebird (I don't know if climbing arthropods such as tree dwelling ants would have greater flexibility of the coxa, but I would suspect they do.)

@futurebird
what's the name of the ant whose 2nd pair of legs are specialized to point dorsally "up towards the ceiling" away from the body, for travel in vertical tunnels, enabling them to brace their legs against opposite sides of a tunnel?

@llewelly the genus Melissotarsus from Madagascar

@llewelly They are also notable for being ranchers of scale insects— but not for nectar! They selectively eat them! Like humans with meat livestock.

@futurebird wow, that's neat.

Are scale insects wax producers?

Thank you for these neat ant facts.

Ants use their front two legs differently from the back legs. They may use these limbs to dig or hold objects in place when manipulating them with their mandibles. The coxa of the front leg is often longer while all of the other segments are shorter. Ants have a comb on their front legs which they use for grooming—

I don’t think the front legs are used for manipulation in enough ways to have that be their primary purpose but there is a distinction that makes them more like “arms”

I think I need to mention that many ants dig just like dogs ... using their front limbs to fling sand or loose soil between their back legs. It's very frantic, but also effective. I have some videos of Dorymyrmex digging this way. When mammals dig this way is it a stereotyped action, or somehow learned? What about with ants?

Can't find my video, but this one is better. It's "silver ants" or Cataglyphis bombycina

(no it's not speed up, they really move like that, when they spin in a circle they are looking for the sun so they will know how to get back to their nest. )