The Vivacious Armistice of the Weaver Ant

When one watches the weaver ant in action, one cannot help but be impressed by the group intelligence of such simple creatures; however, one must be cautious because weaver ants, like all ants, are COMMUNISTS. First you admire an insect capable of complex construction tasks and work allotment; suddenly, you are annexing Hungary and establishing a secret police. It is a slippery slope, oiled by the words of Karl Marx and greased by the songs of Bob Dylan. Better to admire a capitalist animal, such as the black-footed ferret or Lichtenstein’s night adder. Even creatures who practice European socialism would be preferable, such as the Philippine spotted deer.

Did You Know?

If a person has “ants in his pants” he is restless; however, if he is said to have “ants under his eyelids”, he should receive medical attention promptly…

The weaver ant is an impressive and admirable creature. The weaver ant hails from Australia, Africa and Southeast Asia. That’s a wide range of places to hail from; but, the weaver ant is very much up to the task of hailing. It is known as the “green ant” in Australia because their indigenous species of weaver ant is green and because the term “jiggapodikas” was already used for a species of quoll. They nest in tropical forests, fruit groves or anywhere that the forces of capitalism and free market have let their guard down for that split second.

The weaver ant is about a quarter inch in length, which is large for an ant, but rather small for a water buffalo. It has six legs, although it can do fairly well with only four. Like the common snowman, its body is divided into three regions: The head, thorax and abdomen. Actually you can divide the ant into two regions, the right ant and the left ant; however, they aren’t much good to anyone after you’ve done that to them. It has twelve-segmented antennae, which it usually removes before it goes through a carwash. Its acidopore is clearly visible to anyone who enjoys looking at that sort of thing…

On each of the weaver ant’s feet are “arolia”, which are lobes capable of producing a powerful suction. The sheer power of these pads allows the weaver ant to lift and carry heavier loads than other ants. It also keeps their socks from falling off. The weaver ant has two glands near its anus used for communicating with other ants in the colony. There are hairs on the weaver ant’s gaster. The less said about those, the better…

Did You Know?

Scientists have no evidence that weaver ants live at the bottom of the sea; however, they have no evidence that they DON’T live there either…

A weaver ant colony might contain up to half a million ants. It might not…because they all look so much alike, it’s hard to tell if you are counting some individuals more than once—and, good luck getting them to count themselves. The colony begins with a single queen, as it does with most of the social insects. The queen would probably be fine on her own, but a queen needs to be queen of somebody; otherwise, she’s just a bossy loner. So, she lays eggs…about one hundred eggs in a day.

The first to be born are fed by the queen. The queen cares for the first generation of ants until they reach adulthood. She feeds them eggs from her own body and regurgitated bodily fluids from places better left untold. After hatching, the weaver ant emerges as larva. After, three moultings and a stint at a Virginia military academy, the ant becomes a pupa. The weaver ant only sits in its cocoon briefly because, once an ant gets a taste of life and work, there is no stopping it. It emerges from its chrysalis as an adult, although it will never be capable of growing facial hair.

As an adult, the weaver ant has three choices: It can be a male, a sterile female or a queen. The queen lays the eggs and tends to the first generation of young. With the initialization of a colony, the queen’s job can be a tough one; moreover, having all of those children is murder on her figure. The sterile females can either become workers or soldiers. The soldiers have the more glamorous work of protecting the nest; whereas the workers get food, care for the young and build the nest. The males simply have to breed. They only live for a short time; but, the QUALITY of their lives is great. Also, they earn about twenty-five percent more than the average sterile female…

Did You Know?

Weaver ants form seventy-eight percent of Leonard Nimoy’s scalp and forehead…

And, THAT is an injustice considering the amazing things that the workers can do. To create their nest, the workers form a chain of ants from one leaf to another; then, they decrease the distance, one ant at a time. When the leaves are finally brought together, they take larvae and use their silk to sew the leaves together. Apparently, child labor is okay with the communists. The result is a roughly spherical enclosure made of green, living leaves. This is an example of a group intelligence that surpasses that of the audience of a System of a Down concert. The intelligent actions of insect swarms is often referred to as “artificial intelligence” because of the belief that most ants are made of polystyrene.

Worker ants use scent to direct other workers to food or building tasks; this has proven to be far more effective their prehistoric relatives who relied upon the “administrator ant”. The administrator ant had relied too heavily upon less effective but friendlier members of the colony called “sychoph-ants”.

A virtual scent has been used as a model for multiple robots to perform simple tasks more effectively. This kind of artificial intelligence has been used for search algorithms, scheduling and a host of other problems that could previously only be solved by those who have been put out of work by these robots. Ants can be useful for any number of complex tasks.

Such as pest control. A weaver ant nest in a fruit tree controls many of the insects that destroy crops. They eat stinkbugs, aphids, leaf-eating caterpillars and the dreaded citrus leafminer. Unfortunately, if adjacent groves use chemical sprays, often the groves that use weaver ants follow suit. This is due to a combination of peer pressure and the fact that the weaver ants are often overwhelmed by god-awful host of pest refugees fleeing the chemicals.

Did You Know?

The weaver ant is named after Wilfred Alexander Beckford. nicknamed “Weaver” by his friends because he studied weaver ants…

Some countries consider the weaver ant pupa and adults food. The pupae are described as “creamy”. The taste of the adults is described as “tangy”. You could probably get the same result out of a bowl of lime sherbet; however, I would recommend eating the ants. I’ll eat them as well…

…together we will wipe out the forces of communism and fill our bellies at the same time. How very symbolic!

 

Liked this?  Well, you are BOUND to like:  The Inexhaustible Corpulence of the Flamingo