Why You Should Avoid Squishing Ants in Your Home at All Costs

Finding an ant in your home can be alarming: It’s not so much about noticing one single ant, as the thought that if there is a lone ant searching your home for food, there is likely a large colony nearby. And if so, the hope is that the colony isn’t in your house, but somewhere outside of your home. If you want to keep it that way, the worst thing you can do is crush that solitary ant.

When you squash an ant, bodily fluid seeps out (via Lifehacker). That fluid from the ant’s body produces pheromones, which signal to its entire colony to come to find them. This biological process actually helps keep ant colonies safe from disease, as ants will remove dead ant bodies from the colony and leave them in places where the dead ant can’t contaminate the rest of the colony.