Army Ants

A quote made by Lewis Thomas, "Ants are so much like human beings as to

be an embarrassment. They farm fungus, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies

into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, and exchange

information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television." I am going

to focus this report on the part of the quote, "..launch armies into war..,"

which sets a metaphor of ants and our armies in today's society. Ants have many

tactics, so to speak, that are similar to the way our armies have when going to

war.

Ants have many different roles in their society. One of the main roles

that army ants or soldier ants have is that they forage in masses for food.

These masses of ants travel together and are able to overcome and capture other

social insects and large anthropoids, they may occasionally kill larger animals

but they do not eat them. As the need for food for the larvae increases, food

gathering raids become more intense.

The hunting raids made by ants are carried out by "armies" of thousands

of ants and set out from the bivouac in various directions. They form two or

three parties going out simultaneously in different directions for 100 yards or

more. In the U.S. army we attack countries in different areas to weaken the

force we are attacking. We send out thousands of troops in various directions

and try to surround the source of the location being attacked. For instance, if

there are several locations that needed to be attacked to weaken the enemy, like

their weapon storage or air force base, we send several sets of troops to attack

each individual location. This is very similar to the way army ants set out on a

hunting raid. They will send out thousands of ants at once in two or three

different directions.

When ants go out on their raids, a subgroup called Dorgline ants, walk

along margins of the trails as though protecting the smaller individuals in the

center. Dorglines are large soldiers that broaden the trail where it follows a

narrow ledge of bark and twigs or smooth the path where it crosses a rough plate

and they do this with their own body. They do this because footing for the large

ants is better along the margins than in the midst of dense mass of scurrying

ants.

When the army wants to invade or occupy a county, they usually will set

up aircraft carriers in the surrounding oceans and set up air forces in

neighboring countries. They do this to protect the inside forces of troops and