Formic Acid (Lat.formica, an ant), a chemical product so named from its being found in the bodies of ants. It is artificially prepared by dissolving sugar, starch, or tartaric acid in water, adding sulphuric acid, and distilling the mixture on peroxide of manganese. Carbonic acid gas escapes, and formic acid mixed with water distils over. It is colorless and transparent, strongly acid, of specific gravity 1.1168; its composition is represented by the formula CH2O2. Formic acid occurs in human blood, urine, spleen, flesh juice, and perspiration. In Watts's Dictionary of Chemistry" 22 different ways of preparing it are given. Samuel Fischer was the first to make it by distilling ants, and Berthelot was the first to prepare it from inorganic materials.