1. The legend of the terrifying marching ant
In the 1986 issue of The Reader (then titled Reader's Digest), I saw a chilling story of amazon farms being attacked by "10-kilometer-long, 5-kilometer-wide brown ant colonies" that could instantly gnaw beasts into white bones. This is the infamous marching ant, and there are countless stories about it. In 1998, a version of Mystery magazine even said that marching ants ate everything, even gold.
(Marching ants.) Image from the web)
Ants can't eat gold, but legends about ants, deserts, and gold are ancient. As early as ancient Greece, the writer Herodotus recorded the legend of the gold digging ant in his "Histories". Legend has it that the ants were larger than foxes and could dig out gold buried underground, and Indians would ride camels to steal their gold. Then turn around and run, because the speed of the gold digging ant is unparalleled in the world.
Some settled ants (not marching ants, the living habits of marching ants are very unique, as will be mentioned below) will lay some small stones outside the ant mound (mound-shaped ant nest), because the heat conductivity of the stones is better than that of the soil, which can play a role in heating, and sometimes the ant's "stone solar heater" will be mixed with placer gold. The American biologist Edward O. Wilson, a giant figure who studies ants, believes that this may be the source of the gold digger ant legend. It is also believed that the prototype of the gold digging ant is a groundhog, which occasionally brings out the placer gold from the ground when digging a hole.
2. Family tree of marching ants
The entomological term armyant refers to a variety of ant that forages in clusters without a fixed nest, and belongs to three families of the family formicidae: the dorylinae, the aenictinae, and the ecitoninae.
The American entomologist William Gotwald believes that these three types of marching ants, although similar in habits, are all roads through Rome, each with its own ancestors. Marching ants originated in Africa, the bichonopathic marching ants in Asia, and the wandering ants in the Americas.
(Marching ants preying.) Image from the web)
However, in 2003, another American entomologist, Sean G. Brady, studied the genes, morphology and recently discovered ant fossils of marching ants, arguing that these three types of marching ants have a common ancestor, and that they are not related to each other, but to passers-by. The common ancestor of the marching ant can be traced back to the Cretaceous Period, when the American continent was still connected to the African continent, and 100 million years ago, with the separation of the two lands, the nomadic ant family in the Americas was separated from the other two types of compatriots.
All marching ants live in the tropics. Marching ants and double-knotted marching ants are found in Asia and Africa, while the wandering ants are found in the Americas. Their favorite habitat is the rainforest, and there are no marching ants in the food-poor desert.
3. A typical marching ant: the Brinell's ant
The South American Burchelli (scientific name eciton burchelli) is probably the most well-known type of marching ant. As the name suggests, the marching ant is a "great army" that is always "on the move", has no fixed home, and only settles in one place for two or three weeks, and then spends two or three weeks moving to the next place. Makeshift "barracks" of The Bruce's ants are usually tied to tree trunks, where ants huddle in clumps to protect the larvae and queen.
(Densely packed marching ants.) Image from the web. ）
After dawn, the army of Bruce's wandering ants began to patrol the forest, leaving the nest in columns tens of meters long, and then spreading out in a canopy at the front of the column, forming a huge fan shape up to 15 meters wide, harvesting all the small animals on the jungle floor like a sickle. Insects, spiders, scorpions and centipedes are not spared, and sometimes lizards, snakes and chicks are also victims. These prey were not eaten on the spot, but transported back to the "barracks" of the "rear area". In the dry weather, the sound of this army walking and slaughtering could be heard by everyone.2
Many species of ants will send separate "scouts" to hunt for food, find food and then move large troops to help. But whether the marching ants are scouting for food, catching food, or bringing food back to their nests, they always form a huge army. They never act alone.
Generally speaking, carnivores are smaller than their own prey, but a group of carnivores can be combined to subdue prey that is stronger than itself, wolves and orcas (alias killer whales, killer whales, English killer whales, scientific names orcinusorca) are like this, but wolves will never form such a terrifying scale like the Brinell's ants, each group of Bryde's ants have a "mouth" of between 150,000 and 700,000, with a total weight of up to 1 kg.
(Wolf pack hunting.) Image from the web)
The queen is the genitals of the colony. In general, the queen of the ant is always constantly laying eggs, which can be described as a long stream, but the queen of the Buch's swimming ant lays eggs like a tidal wave. Once the army was "stationed" in one place, her ovaries began to develop rapidly, swelling into a large belly, and a week later, she laid 100,000 to 300,000 eggs in one go, and when these eggs hatched into larvae, the army pulled out and went to the next place. The queen also stopped laying eggs and regained her "postpartum hot mother" body to follow the big army, she has strong legs and can walk long distances.
(Queen.) Image from the web)
Marching ants of all three subfamilies have the three characteristics of the Buchell's wandering ants: no settlement, foraging in groups, the ability of the queen to lay eggs in large numbers for a short period of time, and a physique suitable for migration; without exception. Some other species of ants may resemble marching ants in some ways, but only marching ants have three characteristics. For example, the myrmicinae subfamily myrmicinae heterogeneous giant ant (scientific name pheidologeton diversus) also kills insects in swarms, but the total heterogeneous giant ant often settles in one place for a long time.
4. How scary are marching ants?
The world's most powerful marching ant, probably the West African-based Dorylus wilverthi, has a colony of more than 2 million, lays 4 million eggs a month after the queen, and foraging for the column of the army that stretches for nearly a hundred meters — not as long as 10 kilometers as the legend goes, but scary enough.
The American missionary and naturalist Thomas S. Avage (1804-1880) published a terrifying and wonderful paper in 1847 describing how the Westroach marching ants attacked homes. They drive straight in and fight against the "natives" in the house—rats, beetles, cockroaches, etc.—and don't spare the fresh meat and grease they store, and sometimes even the poultry that is locked up, will be bitten alive.
(The "sweep" of marching ants.) Image from the web)
Wow! The Wyeth Marching Ant is so good, eating a person should be no problem, right? But a 2007 study showed that 90 percent of the food eaten by The Wyeth Marching Ants was insects. The reason is simple, although the small size can be compensated by the number, but there is no way to take small steps. A single ant can travel about 100 meters per hour, but the entire colony is much slower. The speed of the Merlinus Marching Ant Brigade is 20 meters per hour, compared to the speed of even sloths 1. 9 km... Are you still afraid of them?
Although for insects and even lizards, the marching ants are tantamount to the death order issued by the god of death, but the large animals killed by the marching ants are mostly imprisoned by humans, and there is no way to escape. Animals that are big enough, or fast enough, can get along with the marching ants. As the Army of Bryde's Ants advances, a variety of small birds of the family formicariidae stop on tree trunks, waiting to prey on insects that are startled by the ants.
In his book The Insect Societies, Wilson says that even a small mouse can easily dodge the attack of marching ants, and we can "hang high" and watch this evolutionary miracle from the side.
(Excerpt from "Antelope and Bees: The Evolutionary Wonders of Sentient Beings", by Tao Yuqing)
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