Respect For Ants

Most of what I've seen on the screen about ants have been in animated features. It started with the 1984 movie, "Gallavants". It's so ancient, I couldn't even find a clip of it on YouTube. To date, there are about four ant movies I can think of - and all in the animated form. There is no shortage of documentaries about them either. After all, ants are easy to personify and are certainly not strangers to us. Then again, how well do we know them?

A recent viewing of "Ant Bully" got me thinking about these insects. As pesky as it may be, it is no mean feat for a species to find their way into our homes and adapt to living in a new environment (this concrete jungle we've created). How many other species can claim to have done that? And they are so selfless. Despite the perils attached to scouting for food, forager ants work really hard at keeping the colony fed. They use their long thin antennae to pick up on pheromone trails left by other ants and to detect food scents, which explains why they tend to follow a certain path (often times the shortest route possible). Pheromones are also used for warning purposes. That's why other ants seem to know when one ant gets crushed. An alarm pheromone is sent out.

In many ways, ants set good examples for us. Here are some clips from documentaries about ants:

So the next time you see an ant, think twice about saying goodbye to it. Say hello. If it's on my table, I usually just blow it to the ground. And don't worry about it falling to its death. Beyond a few centimeters, ants stop accelerating. This means to say, they can fall at any height and survive. Besides, they have their skeletons on the outside of their bodies. Are you an ant convert now?