It primarily inhabits the Sahara Desert and is one of the most heat tolerant animals known to date.

Also, specimens of C. bicolor have been found well north of Sahara.

They forage for the corpses of insects and other arthropods which have succumbed to the heat stress of their desert environment.

[citation needed] The ants navigate the desert terrain by using both visual spatial memory and patterns in skylight.

When light strikes the ant's ommatidia, it is uniformly mapped along the ant's eye, creating a grid that can be used to determine its location.