"If all of humanity were to disappear, the remainder of life would spring back and flourish. The mass extinctions now under way would cease, the damaged ecosystems heal and expand outward. If all the ants somehow disappeared, the effect would be exactly the opposite, and catastrophic. Species extinction would increase even more over the present rate, and the land ecosystems would shrivel more rapidly as the considerable services provided by these insects were pulled away."

- E.O. Wilson & Bert Hölldobler in 1994's Journey To The Ants
posted by fairmettle at 9:20 AM on June 21 [3 favorites]

TIL that meat ants can kill cane toads.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:34 AM on June 21

One would think a lot of diseases would have died out because of all these anty bodies.
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:56 AM on June 21 [3 favorites]

I bought Hölldobler and Wilson's The Ants in 1991 in a harback book club edition. It has sat largely untouched on my bookshelf. But I've been thinking about it lately. I promise I will let you know if I read it.
posted by neuron at 9:57 AM on June 21

Australia's native ants do an incredible amount of work

And what thanks do they get??
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:05 AM on June 21 [1 favorite]

There are trillions of native ants

Yes, but they never turn out on Election Day.
posted by Lemkin at 10:50 AM on June 21

thanks, ants.

thants
posted by seanmpuckett at 1:28 PM on June 21 [2 favorites]

My young entomologist has just obtained a few of our local harvesters (Pogonomyrmex badius) to try to observe their mating habits, now that it's the right season, but complains that they simply will not mingle. They sort of walk around avoiding each other, stunned and afraid, like preteens at a school dance.
posted by mittens at 1:38 PM on June 21 [1 favorite]

"Scientists conservatively estimate there are 2.5 million ants for every person in the world."

ants georg has a lot of work to do to make this statistic more palatable
posted by lalochezia at 3:38 PM on June 21

Please forgive me, but I just saw this today:

Uncle Duke on Blue Sky
posted by mmrtnt at 3:49 PM on June 21

His ants are probably all workers, mittens.

Harvesters have queens who mate with drones, if that’s the right term. I think on the wing, but I’m not sure.
posted by jamjam at 3:53 PM on June 21 [1 favorite]

on the wing

That's strange, typically it's on the abdomen somewhere...
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:30 PM on June 21

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