We humans are an arrogant lot. We go about our daily lives, content in our apparent biological superiority and totally unaware of the seething insectoid threat lurking beneath our feet.
Scientists have discovered that the Argentine Ant rivals mankind with the size and reach of their colonies. They’re found on every continent except Antarctica, and rather than forming hundreds of thousands of individual communities, they actually belong to a single, face-meltingly scary SUPER-COLLOSAL MEGA COLONY. According the BBC:
…whenever ants from the main European and Californian super-colonies and those from the largest colony in Japan came into contact, they acted as if they were old friends.
These ants rubbed antennae with one another and never became aggressive or tried to avoid one another.
In short, they acted as if they all belonged to the same colony, despite living on different continents separated by vast oceans.
The most plausible explanation is that ants from these three super-colonies are indeed family, and are all genetically related, say the researchers. When they come into contact, they recognise each other by the chemical composition of their cuticles.
“The enormous extent of this population is paralleled only by human society,” the researchers write in the journal Insect Sociaux, in which they report their findings.
It’s very clear what has happened here. Content with our position at the top of the food chain, humans have grown complacent and lazy. This has given the ants time to organize in the shadows, breeding a parallel super society poised to wrench the Earth from its human masters. Well, I say this ant menace must be stopped! We must (quite literally) stamp out their insidious plot wherever it might appear, from the deepest jungle to the most unassuming suburban lawn. Ant sympathizers in our Government and civic institutions must be rounded up and imprisoned. The musician Adam Ant must be summarily executed. Two legs good, six legs (and antennae) bad!
Thanks to EM for the link.
Fredric Brown wrote a great SF story called “Come and Go Mad”. I won’t offer up any spoilers, and it *was* just a story, but if it were true? Then the Argentine Ant supercolony would only be one-third of the problem.