An ant’s life:
Lots of wisdom in a little package
Ants
seem to defy logic, and that’s one reason they fascinate me. Fidgety as hell,
always up to something, they are tiny packets of wisdom. They are the only
issue on which I differ with Mark Twain, who considered them the “dumbest of
all animals”. Perhaps the great author and humorist never looked at them
closely or considered the ant’s IQ in relation to its size. But then, don’t
most of us think as he did, seeing ants as absolutely insignificant, stupid, to
be crushed?
Ants
in fact, are perfect example of how diminutive size is no indicator of animal
intelligence or sensibility. Within their tiny frames, they possess and perform
behavioural patterns and responses displayed by large animals. They are
‘silent’, and forever over-excited, true. But they have been around since long
before the birds and mammals appeared, and have developed perhaps the natural
world’s most industrious and organised society.
It
would seem that they were always as big (or as small) as they are today. The
largest ant is 4 cm long. The Hindustani term for the species, ‘chinti’,
implies smallness or small fry. But their size may have in fact saved them many
of the inconveniences faced by larger creatures.
There
are estimated to be over two dozen kinds of ants in and around Mumbai; a few
are regularly seen inside our homes and there are mixed feelings about having
red ants around vs black ones. But both varieties offer great opportunities to
get down to their point of view, which can be fun. Watch them and you will see
the rambling critters frequently ‘kissing’ one another. They are actually
passing on messages in the form of a chemical. These ‘kisses’ also help tell
friends from foes, and there’s plenty of info on food to be shared; after all
it’s a vast menu ants have, and more than anything the ant’s scramble for food
shows just how well these animals work together.
Most
ant species live in huge colonies, complex social structures dominated by a
giant matriarch of sorts — the queen. She’s a mature female (aren’t the females
of most life forms more mature!), she sets up a new colony, a feat of absolute
valour. Indeed, this queen challenges the general impression we might have of
royalty! She flies unprotected by any security, no black cats et al. Hers is a
lifetime as an egglaying machine.
Then
there are males or drones, and finally the workers, most of them female. Yes,
yes! These females lead a life of celibacy. Sounds crazy, but wait. The
reproductive ants, including the males, also have wings, acquired during swar
ming time (usually coinciding with the onset of the rains). Then, swarms of
newly winged males and females emerge from their underground retreats and take
to the air. The winged males, on meeting an adult female, fill her with sperm.
One of these ladies could be the future queen. But them poor males will soon die,
ah, ruing the price of passion.
Unbiased
nature has ensured that the unimaginable variety and numbers of ants function
within life’s food cycles and webs. And presto, it’s an endless list of
ant-dependent creatures we see. Some are even named accordingly, for instance
over 200 species of ant bird in South America, where also live the anteaters.
Here in India, we have the prehistoric-looking ant-lion (an insect), the
pangolin (a mammal) and, in the wooded wilds of Mumbai, also the peculiar
Rufous woodpecker, which even builds its nest inside the ‘living’ nests of
certain tree-ants.
Hard-working
and industrious is the ant world. As the wise King Solomon advised in the
Proverbs: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.”
I’ll
end with a teaser: Over more than three decades, I’ve come across rodents,
cockroaches, assorted bugs, spiders and even moths on Mumbai’s suburban trains
and BEST buses. But never ants.
I’ve
seen a tiny gang of ants feasting 30,000 ft up, in a brand new aircraft; and on
a dinghy miles away from the coast. So why do they shun Mumbai’s buses and
trains?
SUNJOY MONGA
sunjoymonga@gmail.com ( Sunjoy Monga is a naturalist, photographer, and the
author of over a dozen books on biodiversity)
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