WEBVTT - Ant Wars: Episode I - The Antom Menace 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:13.040 For years, the Trailhead nest had been protected by a 0:00:13.119 --> 0:00:18.360 ten thousand member force of its adult members or soldiers. 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.240 A soldier's exoskeleton, twice the size of that of an 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:27.320 ordinary worker, is literally heavy armor, thick, tough, and pitted 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:31.280 in places for resilience and strength. A pair of spines 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:34.000 project backward from the mid section of the body to 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.800 protect the waist. Spikes protect the neck, and the rear 0:00:37.880 --> 0:00:40.839 margin of the head is curved forward, forming a helmet. 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:44.000 When attacked, the soldier can pull in her legs and 0:00:44.080 --> 0:00:47.479 antenna and tighten up the segments of her body, turning 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.919 her entire surface into a shield. The ordinary Trailhead workers, 0:00:51.960 --> 0:00:55.840 while built for labor, were also available for combat. They 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:58.480 served as the light infantry, using the swiftness and the 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:01.000 agility of their supple bodies to dart in and out 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:05.160 of enemy lines, seizing any leg or antenna available and 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.080 holding onto it until their nest mates could close in 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:11.559 and grab another body part. When the adversary was finally 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:14.960 pinned and spread eagled, others piled on to bite, sting, 0:01:15.080 --> 0:01:30.320 or spray her with poison. Welcome to stot to blow 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:40.080 your mind. Production of My Heart Radio Hey you welcome 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:42.200 to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:45.840 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick in today It's Aunts, folks. 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:50.440 That's right, this is going to be Ant Wars Episode one. Uh, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:53.440 the Ampire strikes Back. Perhaps I'm not sure. I haven't 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:56.480 worked out that the full title yet, but yeah, we're 0:01:56.520 --> 0:01:59.160 gonna be taking a couple of episodes to look at 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:03.280 the wars of the Ants, and it seemed ideal that 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:06.560 we kick off with a cold reading from the novel 0:02:06.800 --> 0:02:09.799 ant Hill, a novel by EO. Wilson which came out 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:12.800 in so we were talking about this novel before we 0:02:12.840 --> 0:02:16.280 got started. It actually got some surprisingly good reviews. I 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.000 was thinking about picking up a copy and reading it 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.799 until I discovered that a significant portion of this novel 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:26.800 is about human characters. And I was hoping with EO. Wilson, 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:29.400 you know, especially in the past, we've talked about that 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.240 video where he like plunges his hand into a nest 0:02:32.280 --> 0:02:36.160 of fire ants and beams with the most the most 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.080 radiant joy as the ants all biden sting him. At 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:42.040 the same time, I was hoping it would be all 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:45.360 about ants, because if anybody could do ants as compelling 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.480 central characters. I would think it would be EO. Wilson. Yeah, 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:50.360 I think I was looking at one review of it 0:02:50.400 --> 0:02:53.840 that was glowing that said that they're about seventy pages 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.440 in the novel that only EO. Wilson could have written. 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.040 Um and uh, and I think this gives everyone a 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.960 little taste of that. And when we say, you know, surprisingly, 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:06.080 you know, great reviews, you know it's obviously EO. Wilson 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.880 is a is a tremendous author, but generally he was 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.400 he was associated with with nonfiction, uh, conveying oftentimes conveying 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.200 science very effectively, um to a general audience. But of 0:03:17.200 --> 0:03:19.720 course fiction is a slightly different scenario. So you might 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.960 expect even a very talented nonfiction writer, uh, you know, 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:25.960 to to to perhaps stumble a bit in trying to 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.639 create a work of fiction like this. Oh totally, that's 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:31.840 what I mean. I didn't mean like EO. Wilson's a dummy. 0:03:31.919 --> 0:03:35.000 I just meant that usually when somebody who's not primarily 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:37.040 a fiction writer is like, yeah, I'll do a novel, 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:39.480 it's it's not always great. Well, you know, the main 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.680 the main example that always comes to my mind is 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:45.240 or would be the the tech Wars novels that were 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.080 attributed to William Shatner that although I understand it was 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:51.400 more of a ghost writing scenario, it was in place 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.160 and there was some some spiritual composition in there. But 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:56.400 but I have to say it was not the tech 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.960 Wars that inspired inspired me to to seek this topic 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:03.920 out this week, but rather the Clone Wars um and 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:08.320 and also the miniature board gaming in general. So my 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:12.000 son and I recently ordered a copy of Fantasy Flights 0:04:12.040 --> 0:04:16.080 Star Wars Legion miniature game, which is a miniature um 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:20.000 war game in the tradition of things like say Warhammer 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:23.279 Warhammer forty thousand, and then the older um the the 0:04:23.320 --> 0:04:28.040 older like Napoleonic um war games of old, the kind 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:29.800 of thing that has been the past time of people 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.719 such as H. G. Wells, who wrote a essentially a 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.279 rule book for such miniature gaming, and then was also 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.960 a favorite pastime of Peter Cushing. Right, you recently shared 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.560 this video with me where Cushing is painting his little figurines. 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.000 I guess it's Napoleonic Wars or some similar temporal event 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:50.279 where all these little uniformed figures he's like posing them 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.240 around barns and stuff that he's gotten on his floor. 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:55.520 I think it was a video from the from the 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.000 nineteen fifties that was done. Yeah, it was, it was 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:00.280 nineteen fifties, And yeah, he's really getting into has a 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:02.560 whole whole hobby set up. And yeah, then he's laying 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.960 them out on the floor, getting them into into position. Um. 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:10.240 You know, a very very historical based for sure. But yeah, 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:12.719 just thinking about this sort of thing, thinking about miniature 0:05:12.760 --> 0:05:16.000 gaming in general, and thinking about the clone wars where 0:05:16.080 --> 0:05:19.159 you have on one side a bunch of um, you know, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:25.640 genetically um identical warriors going up against you know, armored 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:29.479 robotic hords. I couldn't help but think of the ants, 0:05:29.520 --> 0:05:32.400 the wars of the ants. You know, it's amazing how 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.440 much hymen opteran conflict we can miss because you're just 0:05:36.480 --> 0:05:39.520 going about your business. Maybe you're doing something in your yard, 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.039 you're hanging out out in the sun or in the 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.960 hammock or something, and you don't even realize that there 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.479 is literally a battle raging just a couple of feet 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:52.440 from you around the blades of grass. Oh. Absolutely, yeah. 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.679 They the ants are are waging their wars, they're defending 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.480 their territories. Um, and and we're talking about against other 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.240 ants and not even talking about their their various struggles 0:06:03.880 --> 0:06:07.520 against other species, and it's everywhere. We did not even 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:11.080 think about our aunts unless they actually invade our homes, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.400 and then then we get hot and bothered about it. 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.880 But I imagine the most crucial question we have to 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.280 consider before we proceed is can we really consider the 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:25.000 conflict we see between ant species between different ant colonies 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:28.240 as warfare more or less in the human sense of 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:30.599 the word. Well, I mean, in one sense you could 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:36.120 say maybe pedantically and obviously no, because it would necessarily 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.400 fail to capture like the full range of human value 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:43.600 and culture and passion that a company's conflict between humans. 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.599 But on the other hand, I think you could absolutely 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:50.080 probably like see some parallels in terms of like pure 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.320 resource dynamics. Yeah, I was thinking about this a little bit. Uh. 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:57.960 Sometimes you see war defined as a declared armed hostile conflict, 0:06:58.640 --> 0:07:02.640 and of course the idea of ants actually declaring war 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.800 on another group of ants is ridiculous because you've been 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:09.080 getting into declarations of war. That's a human political reality, 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:12.440 and as doctor Brundle would probably remind us, insects are 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.560 rather short on politics. I mean, I think that that 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.280 that fails to capture even a lot of actual war 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:20.880 in the human context, where a lot of wars are 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.520 not cold wars by the people carrying them out right. 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:27.880 Another issue, too, is if we're talking about an armed 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.760 hostile conflict, well, ants don't actually take up arms in 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:33.720 the human sense, and of course they don't have to, 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.080 because aunts have a number of biological weapons and chemical 0:07:37.080 --> 0:07:41.679 weapons at their disposal that make make such tool use unnecessary. 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:44.240 And of course we'll be running through some examples of 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:49.200 of these bio weapons as we proceed through these episodes. However, 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.520 we do tend to discuss these conflicts between ant colonies 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.760 between aunt species as being a form of war, something 0:07:57.760 --> 0:08:00.600 that we can think of as war. As bologist and 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:05.120 entomologist Sean O'Donnell pointed out on Serious Science, ants engage 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:09.360 in quote direct aggressive interaction between ants of different colonies. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:13.520 They also engage in such conflict over resources, and as 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:17.960 a noted ant expert author of the Human Swarm tropical 0:08:18.000 --> 0:08:21.560 biologists Mark W. Moffatt has put it, war is quote 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:26.280 the concentrated engagement of group against group in which both 0:08:26.320 --> 0:08:30.040 sides risk wholesale destruction. So it's easy to look at 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.040 other animals perhaps and say, well, cats don't wage war, 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:36.439 dogs don't wage war. It would be, for instance, kind 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:41.000 of ridiculous to say that um lions are waging war 0:08:41.200 --> 0:08:45.400 against say an antelope. Right, Yeah, I think that the 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:49.120 the analogy would really fall short there. But for the ant, however, 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:51.880 it gets a little, a little little different. So Moffatt 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.200 contends that the case for ant warfare is fairly convincing. 0:08:56.240 --> 0:08:58.360 It's not simply a matter of applying the lens of 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.320 human civilization to the behavior of animals. What what they 0:09:01.360 --> 0:09:04.440 are doing and we humans have done for thousands of 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.839 years are both endeavors that entail quote, an astonishing array 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:13.080 of tactical choices about methods of attack and strategic decisions 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.560 about when and where to wage war. Now, the parallel 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.920 there gets especially interesting because while humans would have to 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:24.559 make tactical and strategic choices in in organized conflict consciously, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.160 you know, they have to like use their brains, look 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:30.480 at what's going on and try to judge. I think, uh, 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:32.480 I think we would have to say that the ant 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:36.719 carries out its campaigns almost entirely on instinct. Like it 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:41.520 the ant doesn't have strategic theories except what it naturally 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.560 does by instinctive behavior. That's right. Yeah, they they more 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:47.680 or less simply do. And we'll get into some of 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.120 the details of that here in a second. I want 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:52.600 to throw in that Douglas j Emlin, who wrote an 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:56.520 excellent book several years ago titled Animal Weapons uh he 0:09:56.520 --> 0:09:59.640 he uh, weighs in on this and says that, Okay, 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.400 the most part, animals do not fight battles or wars, um, 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.240 And you know it, basically, he says, most of the 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:09.560 animal conflict that we see in the wild, it's ultimately 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:11.880 more of a duel, you know, especially as far as 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:15.200 interest species contests go, you know, like male fighting a 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:18.520 male over a potential mate. But ants and termites are 0:10:18.720 --> 0:10:22.040 are certainly examples of something that could be a standout, 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:24.480 you know, in which we do see this kind of 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:29.320 large scale war with high stakes for both sides. Um. 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:30.920 You know. I was thinking a bit about this too, 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.880 that you know, even these other scenarios lions versus antelopes 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:36.480 and all like, at best, we could maybe think of 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.200 that as a skirmish, right, but certainly not a war. 0:10:39.320 --> 0:10:43.360 Not certainly not a war of of eradication. Yeah, I 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:46.720 would say that the conflicts between most animals you see 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.880 in nature are much more individual, they're less group oriented, 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.960 that they're less organized. Though at the same time that 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:57.400 brings up an interesting question about what what really counts 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.280 as an individual when you're talking about some thing like 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:04.920 a colony of ants, because unlike say mammals or birds 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.400 or something, answer a situation where within the colony, it 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:12.079 gets harder to make the case that the individual ant's 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.400 body is a is a like independent, autonomous agent, and 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.320 it might be better thought of as like one organ 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:24.520 of the the actual individual, which is the overall colony. Yeah. 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:26.080 I think a lot of it comes down to the 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:28.680 fact that they are so I mean, they're used social insects, 0:11:28.720 --> 0:11:31.920 and they're so connected that there there is this sense 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.880 of civilization to them. You know, they are you know, 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:37.719 they're managing resources in some cases, such with the leaf 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:42.199 counter ant, they're engaging in agriculture. You know, they there's 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.240 this this whole system that is there that that makes 0:11:45.240 --> 0:11:49.680 the argument for ant warfare a lot more convincing than saying, well, 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:54.280 this invasive species is waging a war on the native species. Yeah, 0:11:54.320 --> 0:11:56.800 I mean it is out competing it for some resource, 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:00.040 but it is not like this tight knit unit. It 0:12:00.080 --> 0:12:03.440 is not like a full blown colony. Now, obviously nothing 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.680 humans do is going to be comparable to something in 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.920 the ant world, but the similarities are pretty startling. I 0:12:10.960 --> 0:12:14.160 want to read a quote from a wonderful two thousand 0:12:14.240 --> 0:12:17.920 and eleven Scientific American article titled Ants and the Art 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.640 of War, and this is also by Mark W. Moffatt. Quote. 0:12:21.679 --> 0:12:24.320 Scientists have long known that certain kinds of ants and 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:28.679 termites form tight knit societies with members numbering in the millions, 0:12:28.960 --> 0:12:32.720 and that these insects engage in complex behaviors. Such practices 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:37.120 include traffic control, public health efforts, crop domestication, and, perhaps 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.440 most intriguingly, warfare, the concentrated engagement of group against group 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.720 in which both sides risk wholesale destruction. Indeed, in these 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:48.000 respects and others, we modern humans more closely resemble ants 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.000 than our closest living relatives, the apes, which live in 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:55.320 far smaller societies. So the main similarity between us and 0:12:55.360 --> 0:12:59.240 the ants is that we organize ourselves more so than 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:05.079 almost any other non insect animal. Right now, Biologically, of course, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:08.360 we're much larger vertebrates. We have impressive brains that have 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:13.280 enabled us to achieve unequal technological accomplishments, including but not 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:16.800 limited to, the production of nineteen fifty four Is Them 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.880 and Birdeye Gordon's nineteen seventy seven film Empire of the Ants. 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.120 You don't see the ants themselves making films this good. 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:28.800 That's true, Aunt cinema is rather lacking, though, I don't 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:30.960 know if I've seen this bird Eye Gordon movie or not. 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:32.880 Of course, birt Eye Gordon has come up on the 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.839 show several times. He's sort of Mr. A k A, 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.600 Mr Big. He's the king of the force perspective effect, 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:40.719 where you know, you take like a lizard and then 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.280 you shoot it up close against the background and make 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:45.840 it say that it's a dinosaur. Yeah. I have to 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.840 say I haven't seen Empire of the Ants either. I 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.920 mainly know it because it's referenced in a Warren Zevon song. 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.440 But it's a nineteen seventy seven release. That's that's pretty 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:59.560 late into in the Birdeye Gordon Giant Animal Rampaging world. 0:13:59.559 --> 0:14:02.240 I would think last time I checked, Bert Eye Gordon 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.720 was still alive. I think he is, oh well, still 0:14:05.720 --> 0:14:08.560 going at Yes, he's ninety seven years old, all right, 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.679 so obviously ants can't actually top that. You know, they 0:14:11.679 --> 0:14:14.320 don't have language, they don't have civilization in the sense 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.839 that we do. Ants. However, they have a different way 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:20.480 of going about things. So for instance, they produce While 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.400 we're like a fifty fifty male female species, ants only 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:28.320 produce males to serve as short lived reproductive drones to 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:33.080 fertile queens. That's right, I mean ants are females basically. Yeah, 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.000 the vast majority of the colony consists of sterile females. 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.240 And while the queen terminology, you know, if we talk 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:43.200 about the queen ant and it brings with it the 0:14:43.280 --> 0:14:48.560 legacy of human centralized power structures, Ultimately, ants function without 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:53.800 a power hierarchy or a permanent leader. They are entirely decentralized. So, 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.920 like you said earlier, combat decisions, they're not made by commanders. 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.320 You know, if if this was a miniature war game, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.400 you wouldn't have the command or piece that's essential for 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:04.600 all of this to take place. No, it's rather a 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:08.040 case of swarm intelligence. That is one of the hardest 0:15:08.080 --> 0:15:10.520 things to keep in mind because there there's this natural 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.960 tendency we have to assume that something called the queen 0:15:15.200 --> 0:15:17.480 is in charge. But Yeah, when you're thinking about aunts, 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:20.080 you have to remember that basically ants are always at 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.760 war and the queen is never in command. The queen 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.520 doesn't tell the ants what to do. They are highly 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.680 motivated to protect the queen. But that's kind of in 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:31.720 the same way that like you are highly motivated to 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:35.920 protect the most vulnerable parts of your body from injury, right, 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.240 like you'd protect your face and stuff. Like, the queen 0:15:39.720 --> 0:15:43.920 is their reproductive chances, and that's why she is protected, right, 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.040 and she's she is very important. There's some passages in EO. 0:15:47.080 --> 0:15:50.640 Wilson's novel where where the the tragedy of the fall 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.040 of their their queen is discussed and how this is 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.120 a you know, part of the peril that this key 0:15:57.120 --> 0:16:00.200 group of ants finds themselves in. But ultimately, the wars 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.560 of ants in the wars of humans, they're often fought 0:16:02.600 --> 0:16:07.080 for the same reasons territory, food, ideal dwelling spaces, and 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:10.480 even labor. So some ant species do in fact employ 0:16:10.640 --> 0:16:12.760 something that we might think of as slave labor, and 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:15.560 we'll come back to that as we go, But also 0:16:15.600 --> 0:16:20.960 ants deploy various tactics depending on what is at stake, So, like, 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:24.640 you know, not every war is equal to the ant colony. 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:28.560 There is um, there's a fluctuation in you know, the 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:30.640 amount of effort that is put into it, how much 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:35.520 ant power is h is put on the line, etcetera. However, 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.400 in his book The Human Swarm, Moffatt speaks a little 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.080 bit more about this, about the basic comparison between human 0:16:41.120 --> 0:16:43.800 and ant warfare, and he does he does write that quote, 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:48.200 if nothing else, remember this, Comparing identical things is deadly boring. 0:16:48.720 --> 0:16:52.320 Making comparisons is most fruitful when parallels are noticed between 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:56.960 ideas or things or actions ordinarily treated as distinct. Uh. 0:16:56.960 --> 0:16:58.880 And he discusses this at length in that book, if, 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:01.040 if if any wants to to pick that up and 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.440 explore more. But I think this is also something that's 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:05.399 important to keep in mind. Yeah, it's it's not a 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.560 one to one, but if it were a one to one, 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.080 we probably wouldn't be doing a podcast about it. Right, 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:12.560 all right, we need to take a quick break, but 0:17:12.600 --> 0:17:15.159 when we come back, we will talk about aunt warriors 0:17:15.200 --> 0:17:22.640 in classic literature. Thank alright, we're back. So we spent 0:17:22.680 --> 0:17:25.600 the whole first portion of this episode talking about the 0:17:25.680 --> 0:17:29.880 idea of comparing ant warfare to human warfare and uh 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.320 and to what, to what extent it's fair, what extent 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.440 it makes sense? And ultimately it's irrelevant because we still 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:38.600 do it, and we've been doing it for a very 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.400 long time. We've been making that connection between human warfare 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.439 and ant warfare, perhaps for as long as warriors have 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:47.720 had a chance, uh, you know, to pause on the 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.280 battlefield and look down between their human feet and see 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:55.359 a smaller version of their campaigns playing out in the 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.439 dirt beneath them. For instance, if we look back to 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:03.000 the Iliad, uh, specialized warriors who serve the mighty Akellyes 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.159 are known as the Myrmidons. The aunt people is the 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.159 the literal translation of that. Now, I know, according to 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:14.800 some mythological sources, the Mermanons who fight with Achilles actually 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.440 were ants at some point. Isn't that right? They were 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:22.080 like transformed into human warriors from their aunt origins. Yeah. 0:18:22.119 --> 0:18:25.520 The tradition that we see in Ovid's metamorphosis, for example, 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:32.040 is that is that the gods transformed the ants into humans. Uh. 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.719 And that's why they have these these ant like uh 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:39.600 uh tendencies. They have this ant like tenacity because they 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.040 are essentially ants that were made human, but of course 0:18:43.119 --> 0:18:46.400 that was not the actual reality. These were These were 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:47.919 human troops, and we have to make some sort of 0:18:47.920 --> 0:18:51.480 sense of it. Uh I was reading a two thousand 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:54.879 tin paper published in the Classical World by Matthew Sears 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:58.480 titled Warrior Ants Elite Troops in the Iliad, and he 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:01.679 points out that masked fighting was probably the norm in 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.480 the days of Homer, but that in this we get 0:19:04.520 --> 0:19:08.159 into scholarly conflict over the idea of the hop Light 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.320 revolution and the prin pre hop light and Hoplight warfare. 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:14.480 Now this refers to the Greek use of spears and 0:19:14.520 --> 0:19:17.840 shields and the phalanx formation, so this is kind of 0:19:17.880 --> 0:19:21.960 like an ant level um of of of cooperation that 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.080 stands in contrast to mass fighting and the dramatic single 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:29.520 combat episodes of the Iliad. So the basic idea here 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:32.600 is that the Myrmidons as well as you know opposing 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:37.920 soldiers under Ajax, might be understood as specialized warriors, professional 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:42.439 soldiers who use UH this type of tight formation with 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:45.879 the shields providing you know, absolute support for the unit 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.800 and UH and the offensive spears used in a very 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:51.640 deliberate manner, as opposed to just a bunch of warriors 0:19:51.880 --> 0:19:55.119 running out and going at it. So definitely keep the 0:19:55.119 --> 0:19:57.000 phalanx in mind, because we'll come back to it and 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:59.960 discuss it more when we get into anti tactics a bit. 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.240 But basically, on both sides of the conflict described in 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:05.439 the Iliad, the ideas that you would have had a 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:10.359 mix of such professional, highly trained fighters alongside more generalized, 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:13.320 generalized troops, and of course this would remain a reality 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.320 in warfare for a long time, the professional soldiers fighting 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.800 alongside the uh you know, basically common commoners, common men 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:23.800 who have just been given arms or have taken up 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.520 arms in the conquest. Now in this series goes and 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:29.639 of course into a great deal more detail because it 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.800 is primarily concerned with the ancient world, but he actually 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.360 poses the question of whether ancient people's without special lenses 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.480 would have been able to mark the similarities between human 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:43.240 and ant organized conflict, and based on the work of others, 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:46.840 he says, yeah, you know, we look at the traditions 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:50.520 in Africa, Australia and New Guinea, uh, in cases where 0:20:50.520 --> 0:20:52.360 you have people who are know, who have not used 0:20:52.359 --> 0:20:56.120 specialized gear to analyze ants, and they have long made 0:20:56.200 --> 0:21:00.600 these comparisons. Quote the warlike characteristics of ants would have 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:02.679 been just as apparent to the eyes of the ancient 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.680 Greeks as they were to throw and McCook. In short, 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:09.359 the description of achilles men as aunt people maybe due 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:13.400 to their resemblance in terms of ferocity, uh, tactical ingenuity, 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:17.560 unit cohesion, and general belicocity to these insects as as 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:21.000 as observed by the ancients. Okay, so what makes them 0:21:21.119 --> 0:21:24.880 like ants? It's that they are fierce, that they execute 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.239 tactics effectively, that they stick together and don't break up 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:32.239 into individuals, and that they're very aggressive. Yeah they're not. 0:21:32.320 --> 0:21:35.680 Just yeah, I think the sticking together and like working 0:21:35.760 --> 0:21:38.320 as a as a unit is keyty Here, it's not 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.600 the warfare of sort of you know, random battle. It's 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:45.040 not the warfare of like the one hero fighting the 0:21:45.080 --> 0:21:48.200 other hero at the at the at the walls of Troy. No, 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.840 it is about tactics and in uniform performance exactly, and 0:21:53.200 --> 0:21:55.919 that is the advantage of the phalanx. Alright, So the 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.080 next question folks might wonder is how long have aunt's 0:21:59.119 --> 0:22:02.119 waged these wars or maybe you haven't, maybe you're not 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:03.720 asking that question, but let me go and tell you 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.280 it's an interesting question with an interesting answer. Tell us 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:09.239 the answer, Robert, All right, well, well, first of all, 0:22:09.320 --> 0:22:11.520 let's let's consider the big picture. First, we have to 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.200 really stop and realize that we live in the world 0:22:15.320 --> 0:22:18.480 of the ant. Because today the world is home to 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:22.639 an estimated twenty two thousand species of a ant. And 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.400 of those, only I've seen two different numbers for this, uh, 0:22:26.480 --> 0:22:30.520 twelve thousand, five hundred or perhaps thirteen thousand have been 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:34.560 classified or described. So we're still talking thousands of ant 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:36.679 species out there that we just you know, don't have 0:22:36.720 --> 0:22:38.920 a good handle on, maybe don't even have names for 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:42.920 um now. According to ted Our Shooltz in a n 0:22:43.880 --> 0:22:48.919 paper on ant ancestors, ants probably account for fifteen to 0:22:49.800 --> 0:22:53.720 of the terrestrial animal biomass today. So that means if 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:56.480 you take all of the animals that live on land, 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:58.919 and of course this doesn't include plants and stuff like that, 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:01.359 but all the animals that live on land, you weigh 0:23:01.440 --> 0:23:05.240 them all together, this estimate would say fifteen of that 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.440 is just ants. Yeah, and apparently in areas where they're 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:12.760 especially prominent, you could maybe be looking at they because 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:16.040