Ain't Like an Ant

The previous posting described some interesting ways in which our human behaviors are similar to ants: they “domesticate” other critters and milk them, they farm, and they “sing” as they work. It's enlightening to open ourselves to the fact that other forms of life on Earth bear a greater resemblance to us than we've long thought. We've historically tended to place our species on a pedestal—greatly elevated from other critters. We've viewed ourselves as much closer to the gods. In the modern era, however, we have come to understand that there is far less of a difference between ourselves and simple creatures... such as ants.

When ants form a colony something very sagacious emerges: a level of intelligence that can rival human capabilities. It is useful to find ourselves toppled from our self-imagined pedestal, and realize the similarities and unity of all life on Earth. After all, every one of us has evolved from the very same primal life form. We're just different branches and twigs on the same tree of life.

While describing a few similarities between humans and ants in the previous post, I think it's also interesting to consider some ways in which we ain't like ants. They are unique little critters who possess some remarkable qualities that we can't begin to imagine. If only we had some of their skills...

We have language, giving us a sophisticated form of communication. Ants may not be able to talk as we do (How could a mandible purse its lips?), but they “speak” to each other in a very sophisticated language: they use dozens of different types of pheromones to communicate. They combine various kinds of pheromones to give each other various kinds of messages. The most common use is to lay down a pheromone trail that guides sister ants to a stash of food, the garbage dump, burial grounds, or the way back home.

Ants' pheromone chemicals are incredibly potent—they need to be, when you think about one tiny ant laying down a path over several yards long. In fact, scientists have demonstrated that just a single milligram of pheromone (less than a thousandth of an ounce!) can lay down an ant trail that would circle the Earth 60 times!

While humans tend to come in one size, some ants (even of the same species) may be 200 times larger than others (depending on the individual duties of each of them in the colony)! Each size ant has its specific job within the colony, and they cooperate beautifully, to accomplish their sophisticated tasks. Think how a human being, 200 times larger than another human of the same species, would treat its tiny relative.

When it comes to the subject of sex, humans and ants could hardly differ more. The colony is composed entirely of females—all sisters, the daughters of one queen. When a nascent female ant mates with a male (who immediately thereafter perishes), she becomes a queen who stores the sperm in her body for 10 years and more, to fertilize millions of eggs. Not much of a sex life!

So the next time you spot an ant trotting across the floor, you might ponder the various ways it is like us (farming, domesticating other critters, and singing as they work), as well as the ways we are alien (pheromone communication, size, and sex). Ain't life's variations grand?