Biochemical Compositions of Black Carpenter Ant, Camponotus pennsylvanicus

Biochemical compositions of black carpenter ants (Camponotus pennsylvanicus) were analyzed using standard methods. The proximate composition (%) were as follows: crude protein (22.50), crude fibre (1.46), carbohydrate by difference (30.86) and energy (35.4Kcal). The predominant mineral was potassium and nickel was the least. The antinutritional properties (mgkg-1) ranged as follows: Oxalate (1.35), phytate (62.79), and tannins (0.72). The results suggested that the ant may be a good source of nutrition.


INTRODUCTION
Black carpenter ants are about 3.4 to 13 mm long. They are different colours (black, reddish or yellowish). The ant lives outdoors and indoors, decaying or hollow wood. Carpenter ants do not eat wood, but they love sweets and meats, especially on other insects. Carpenter ants are similar to termites, but unlike termites however, do not eat wood for food (Orkin, 2016).
The nutritional values of insects have long been recognized (Abulude (2004(Abulude ( , 2007. In the past, insects' consumption has mainly been confined to rural Nigeria, but nowadays it has spread to all parts of the country. There has been phenomenal rise in the costs of the conventional sources of protein like egg, fish, meat and others. To this end, there is an option to source for alternatives that are relatively cheap, hence there is the need to study this insect based on animal and human needs. The results will determine if it will be necessary to kill, conserve or breed the back ants for future use as feed to animals and food to human. Processing has assisted in eliminating or reducing some antinutrients, per chance if the antinutrients are high there may be the need for processing.
Like other insects, carpenter ants are food to fowls, lizards and other animals. There is a scanty information on the nutritional and antinutritional compositions of the ants in Nigeria and many parts of the world. It is in view of this that the study was embarked upon. To achieve this aim, the biochemical compositions of the black carpenter ants will be determined.

MATERIALS AND METHODS
Camponotus pennsylvanicus (Carpenter ants) was collected from Federal College of Agriculture, Akure, Ondo State, Nigeria. The ant was sundried for ten days in order to eliminate moisture, ground into fine powdery form, packed in a plastic container, labelled accordingly and stored in refrigerator prior to laboratory analysis.
The proximate and mineral compositions were determined as described by AOAC (2005), while phytate content was determined using the methods described by Abulude and Ojediran (2006). The calorific values in kilojoules were calculated by multiplying the crude fat, protein and carbohydrate by Atwater factor of 37, 17 and 17 respectively and calculated fatty acid (0.8 x crude fat) (Adeyeye et al., 2008).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results obtained in this study (Tables 1) showed that the sample analyzed contain appreciable amount of nutrients which compared favorably with the conventional feeds.  (Abulude, 2004). Also, the ant sample's carbohydrate content was lower than 35.75 -71.22% found in varieties of mushrooms (Abulude and Ndamitso, 2013).
There was little or no difference in the proximate analysis between the carpenter ant and that of cowpea and soyabean, although the fat extracted in carpenter ant had a low percentage of fat 1.00% compared to that of D. alata (Udensi et al., 2010)) The ash content which is an indication of the percent mineral component of the ant was relatively high, it could be deduced that the ants will contain high levels of minerals.
The anti-nutrients are relatively high. This is an indication that some mineral and protein might not be available for the consumers of this sample. Anti-nutrients are known to inhibit the absorption of mineral and other food nutrients in the body.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
The study confirmed that carpenter ants contained high protein, fat, and carbohydrate, it may be good as alternatives to other convectional feeds for animals. The limitation of this sample could be the high content of phytate, oxalate and tannin, but it would be recommended that the sample should be subjected to different processing methods like boiling, autoclaving and so on before consumption.