Petlife logo

THE WAR OF ANT: THE LONG-LIVED SYMBOL OF "FOR THE COMMUNITY" IDEALS | PART 2

There must be a reason, making fighting a part of the instincts of many animals.

By PiousPublished 4 years ago 3 min read
Like
THE WAR OF ANT

Continue the previous story:

3. The enslaving strategy

Some families are even shrewder for they enslave workers from others for their service. During the nest raids of neighboring ants, the dulotic ant will kill the adult ants and bring unborn eggs to the nest. When young ants hatch, they have no idea who their true fellow humans are, and will accept the orders of their new owners.

Slaves are all too often worn out for they’re assigned every task: from foraging, nursing to even baby-sitting their rulers. As the owners have now evolved towards enslaving others, thus, being deprived of the ability to perform normal tasks.

That said, not all slaves are ill-fated. Some rebel, ripping off the larvae and throwing outside the nest. Such a rebellious behavior is omnipresent among Temnothorax Longispinosus - slaves of Protomognathus Americanus.

4. The so-called “you won’t lose as long as you could avoid the fights” strategy.

In watered-down and small-scale colonies, averting conflicts is pretty much a wise choice. They, for the most parts, endorse and practice defensive strategies.

Termites are also honeypot ants’ all time favorite. Whilst foraging, should the two colonies stumble upon, clash will, without recourse, break out. The workers will then stand on their feet, striving to threaten their opponents. The watered-down, usually the smaller in size, will quickly give up and leave upon sensing no chance of winning.

Another tactic to avoid conflict is that of an ant species in Ecuador. Before the attack of stronger opponents, they will roll small pebbles to fill the door of the cave to prevent enemies from invading. Meanwhile, some species of Borneo ants even commit suicide to protect their nests. When it encounters an enemy, it will shake the body so hard that it will tear the cuticle crust, spewing out yellow glue containing toxins produced from a gland inside the body. When scooped up with this glue, the scout could hardly return to tell its herd the location of the suicide bombers.

It’s not to mention, some agriculture-specialized families even hire mercenaries to safeguard.

5. Argentine Ant.

Ultimately, have you been longing for the most ferocious battles, on par with humans’ world wars, take a look at Argentine ants. They’re now reigning the entire Southern California region and a vast number of other parts of the world, forming a superpopulation of countless smaller families always-on-the-fight with each other. Casualties are all too often stretched to millions per week and they have so far given no sign of stop.

That there exist a number of queens in a colony leaves these Argentine ants outstanding from others. Their population, therefore, far exceeds that of other “normal” families.

They’re born aggressive, and their population is pretty much constrained by clashes from the insiders.

A few coincident events have fanned out this family throughout the world, to utopia with hardly any natural enemy. They have since gradually become the mightiest family with the largest number of individuals on record.

6. Bonus

Let alone ants, some of the Hymenoptera family, to illustrate, wasps and honey bees, can also mobilize forces to wage war or self-defend in paramount moments.

To put into perspective, Australia’s Tetragonula carbonaria stingless bees often, regardless of their families, seizure others’ nests. Such a behaviour is commonplace in highly social insects. Still, the ferocity of their clashes is somewhat preeminent. John Paul Cunningham, Queensland University of Technology (Australia) once reported: “Swarms from the attacking and defending hives colliding midair and fighting bees falling to the ground locked in a death grip from which neither combatant survives”.

Japanese honeybees are the prey of a much larger species: giant hornet. Whilst a hornet is capable of annihilating up to 40 honeybees in a minute, the underprivileged’s stinges could hardly penetrate the Brobdingnagian’s outer layer. Together, they have come up with a strategy to self-defend: a swarm of honeybees gathered around their rival, breakneckly flapping their wings to get the hornet on fire.

Then, nature, to all appearances, still seems ferocious.

Thereabouts, they either bypassed the wars as much as possible, or let those outbreak.

From the ferocity to other miseries, aren’t they palpable?

What else can we ever expect from wars, whether humans’ or animals’?

To all likelihood, the desires to sidestep wars seem most feasible.

wild animals
Like

About the Creator

Pious

All the money in the world can not buy your health!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.