White ants are actually termites, white ant is just the common name. Many people when quickly identifiying a mass of insects that have been disturbed, will often come up with White ants as the culprit. In the many years that I have been dealing with insect pests I have learnt that a quick id by an unqualified person, will often mistake common ants for termites.
Common Ants have nesting habits that ensure that above all the next generations are looked after first. When a nest of black ants are disturbed the ants will hurriedly pick up any eggs to protect them and find a new place to tend them. These eggs are very white and often around the same size as the ant that is carrying it. When the person who has disturbed the ants first sees a writhing mass of thousands of insects, often they have such a shock at seeing this unexpected insect life that the first reaction is to run and grab some spray to dispatch the invaders! At this point there is most often very little time spent in the identification of the pest however invariably the most common movement seen will be the ants that are rapidly moving the very white eggs to safety.
For a look at what termites really look like follow this link to a close up view of some termites
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