ALRIGHT YOU CURS. Since your inexplicable need for ant-related facts cannot be sated through recourse to other avenues of investigation I will do my best to quell the fires of your burning curiosity. Quell them good.
THIS IS NOT AN ANT.
But I have found that the clip above puts me into a state of hypnogogia, the transitional phase between waking and sleeping, and conjures up many thoughts on the position of ants in relation to us. By speeding up a baby's play it kind of ends up looking like an ant does to me. I don't really get what it's doing but it seems to follow some kind of animal logic that I would try to explain through chaos theory if I thought you would understand and also if I knew what that was.
Anyway, nobody really knows how ants work or exactly why they do things the way they do. They know a lot about them, but not the whole story. They're as mysterious as any other form of life (or non-life I suppose) when you get down to brass tacks.
Here are some other anty tidbits:
If ants bother you, you can put some sugar outside and they'll hang out there. It's like building a wine bar in an increasingly gentrified neighbourhood - it won't eliminate the pests but will give them somewhere to congregate away from you. The sugar is cheaper though.
Some ants can't bite or sting but can spray a certain kind of acid. Birds will place these ants in their feathers so that the acid will repel parasites.
Ants aren't like flies or bees - they're not particularly annoying. The only annoying thing about them is their tenacity. They don't give up and you generally can't stop them. The other potentially annoying thing is that if you stare at them, they can appear very confusing since their motives are hard to define. See the baby above.
Some kinds of ants are used as living pantries by the members of their colony. They're fed with honeydew and beefed up until they can't move. Then they just store the stuff for others to feed from. This is very creepy.
AND THAT'S ANT FACT MONDAY.
Which is powered by this week's theme: the fundamental wonder and mystery of existence and how good it is that it is this way.
Also: Why is this handrail so small?
Also: hey do I know you?
5 comments:
ANTS ROCK.
One of my favourite things on the planet. Right up there with turtles, pigs and bees.
Another favorite clip featuring ants? http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=bCWA7uevo_Q
ants pwn dragons
That video had me in a trance...which i enjoyed so I watched it again. And once more for luck.
The handrail is small because it's the entrance to the building that houses The Association For People With Small Hands, silly sausage.
Parry that's brilliant. "Water, water, what hast thou donest?"
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