WEBVTT - From the Vault: Ant Wars, Episode 3 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.760 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.800 --> 0:00:10.840 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:00:10.840 --> 0:00:12.800 bringing you an episode from the vault of This is 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:18.200 AUNT War's Part three, originally aired June eighth. Let's release 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:24.680 the ants Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:33.440 of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to 0:00:33.440 --> 0:00:36.080 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.040 Joe McCormick, and we're back with part three of our 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.240 Aunt Wars episodes. Now. In the previous episodes, we've already 0:00:42.240 --> 0:00:44.839 covered a ton of different topics, the evolution of you 0:00:44.960 --> 0:00:49.880 social insects like ants um. We talked about the conflicts 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.000 between army, ants and and everything in their path. We 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.680 talked about theories of combat disparities and how those may 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.920 apply to ants and and control the ways that's Aunt 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.800 sometimes select which members of the colony go out to fight. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.560 We talked about the bivouax, the big war rig for 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:08.680 the Queen made out of army ants um. It's been 0:01:08.880 --> 0:01:10.600 it's been a great journey so far, but we have 0:01:10.640 --> 0:01:13.800 to press on. That's right. Uh So, one thing I 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:15.680 want to talk about it at the very start here 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:20.360 is the idea of empires of the ants, because, as 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.520 with human civilizations, apparently it's the larger ant societies that 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.520 spread the most violence. Smaller ant societies are less likely 0:01:28.560 --> 0:01:32.039 to engage in any kind of protracted war against other 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.920 ant species. But but here's an interesting point raised by 0:01:36.000 --> 0:01:40.200 entomologists Shawn O'Donnell in Ant Wars for Serious Science. Some 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:46.319 species of highly successful invasive ants demonstrate unicolonality. Uh. They 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.040 develop a willingness to identify members of other colonies as 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:54.240 part of their own, and the result is a super colony, 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.720 a true empire of the ants. Yeah, we discussed the 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.200 super colony adaptation in our episode. It's about the multiple 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.559 species of ants known as crazy ants, and this name 0:02:04.600 --> 0:02:09.120 comes from their rapid, almost frantic or radic looking movements 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.520 sometimes when you like, if you watch video of them 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:15.320 moving around on the ground, it almost looks like flies 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.639 buzzing around. It looks like they're flying. Yeah, it's it's 0:02:18.680 --> 0:02:21.799 it's visually, at least to us, starkly different from the 0:02:21.960 --> 0:02:25.239 sort of you know, linear lines were used to seeing 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.520 for ants. Yeah, but the super coloniality issue came up 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:31.280 in our episodes on the Mystery of Crazy ants supposedly 0:02:31.320 --> 0:02:35.240 being attracted to electricity or electrical appliances. Remember that where 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.799 we're talking about all those stories people had of like 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:41.320 the their TV being full of crazy ants and people 0:02:41.360 --> 0:02:43.600 didn't know why that was happening. That was, of course 0:02:43.639 --> 0:02:47.799 the raspberry crazy ant of the genus Nylanderia, and then 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:50.720 we also talked about them in our episodes on Christmas Island. 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:53.200 Remember it was the invasive species of crazy ant known 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:58.519 as yellow crazy ants or anoplo Lepis grass sillipps that 0:02:58.680 --> 0:03:01.880 was severely threatening the Christmas Island crabs. It was actually 0:03:02.400 --> 0:03:05.400 colonies of those ants that were spraying formic acid into 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:07.800 the eyes of the crabs and into the leg joints 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.000 until they were immobilized and then the ants just eat them. 0:03:11.000 --> 0:03:15.040 And there was an interesting project to try to introduce 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.600 a species of insect there to Christmas Island that would 0:03:18.600 --> 0:03:22.680 help cut down on the populations of invasive ants. But anyway, 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.280 it's the tendency for crazy ants to form super colonies 0:03:26.880 --> 0:03:29.920 that is considered one factor in their success as an 0:03:29.919 --> 0:03:34.320 invasive species. Um you know, so they're super colonial, meaning 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:37.520 that when colonies of the same species meet one another, 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.440 instead of duking it out and going to battle with 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:42.760 one another. They just act as if they were from 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.440 the same colony. They team up instead of antagonizing one another. 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:50.040 UM and there are examples where people think they've detected 0:03:50.120 --> 0:03:53.880 gigantic super colonies of these ants. One that we read 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:55.960 in one of those previous episodes was a New York 0:03:56.000 --> 0:03:59.520 Times article that that quotes Edward Lebrun, who's in a 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:03.120 college US at the University of Texas at Austin UM, 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.480 and he apparently believes that there was a single super 0:04:06.480 --> 0:04:10.480 colony in the Texas town called Iowa Colony. I know 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.760 that's confusing because we're talking about ant colonies and it's 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.040 in Texas, not Iowa, but that's a town it's called 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.360 Iowa Colony, and he believes that there was a super 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:22.520 colony of crazy ants occupying up to forty two hundred 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:26.200 acres in that town and spreading two hundred meters a 0:04:26.279 --> 0:04:29.680 year in every direction. But that's by no means the 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.600 only Aunt super colony that's been found there. There are 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.560 other species and other super colonies that have been found 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:39.279 all over the continents. That's right. Mark W. Moten mentioned 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:43.160 an extremely large super colony of Argentine Aunt that ranges 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:48.440 from San Francisco to the Mexican border. Trillion strong and united. 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.839 It's a it's a super colony, and wars rage just 0:04:51.920 --> 0:04:56.000 perpetually along its borders. He writes. Each month, millions of 0:04:56.120 --> 0:04:59.200 Argentine ants die along battlefronts that extend for miles around 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:03.200 San Diego. Clashes occur with three other colonies and wars 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:06.359 that may have been going on since the species arrived 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:10.280 in the state a century ago. And these wars, as 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.200 we've discussed in our previous episodes, are far from random 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:17.479 thrashings of aunt brutality. Uh. These are wars that align 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:20.640 with some of the same mathematics and tactics and principles 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:24.000 that we see a play in human military history. And 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:27.240 we have another example of this to consider, another interesting 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.120 parallel that's drawn between the wars of ants and the 0:05:30.160 --> 0:05:34.160 wars of humans, and that is uh, the the the 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.479 this thing that we refer to as ant tournaments or 0:05:37.480 --> 0:05:42.039 AUNT tournament sites. So for starters, you might need to 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:45.280 dismiss whatever sort of Mortal Kombat scenario is entering your 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.560 mind here at the thought of an ant tournament. Yeah, 0:05:48.600 --> 0:05:51.520 but don't worry, because the reality is much cooler than 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:56.360 just like a single or double elimination tournament for ance. Uh. 0:05:56.440 --> 0:05:59.920 So here's the here's an example that MafA Eo will 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:02.560 Sin and others bring up frequently, and that is honey 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.800 pot ants. Now, these ants are astonishing creatures in their 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.200 own right, even before you get to the tournament issue. Uh. 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:12.520 Their their way of storing food is something that you 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:14.799 must see for yourself. You you you should look up video 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.320 of them. Yeah, because their name honey pot ants. Because 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:21.800 what happens is the workers will the workers have the 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:26.320 ability to gorge themselves unto their abdomens are enormously swelled 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.280 and they look like little honey pots, uh, just filled 0:06:29.560 --> 0:06:33.400 with liquid food. So instead of storing excess food within 0:06:33.640 --> 0:06:37.040 a stash within the colony like a lot of ants do, uh, 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:40.640 the honey pot ants store it within themselves in these 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:45.440 little mobile depositories that are themselves and swollen workers that 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.360 we call repleats. And then if if you're another aunt 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:50.919 in the colony you need a little food, will you 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:52.880 come up to one of the repletes uh? And I 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:54.880 believe you, like you can touch their antenna and just 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.920 the right way and they'll regurgitate up some food for you. Right, 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:01.040 You you you you poke your estimate and it will 0:07:01.080 --> 0:07:04.200 barf up your dinner. Yeah, they're like little vending machines. 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:07.520 Ah and I see you included a picture of this 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:10.120 in our in our notes here for me to look at, Joe. 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:13.520 They're wondrous, They're beautiful. They do look like little drugs. 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.200 They're so swollen they look on droplets of honey or 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.280 like extremely golden chickpeas their their back lid in this 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:22.840 image that I've shared with Robert, and it makes their 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.880 swollen abdomens look like bits of amber. Now, in addition 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:29.160 to this, there are there are other wrinkles to their 0:07:29.680 --> 0:07:33.960 their peculiarity. So they're highly territorial. They frequently prey on 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:38.440 foraging termites, and should two different groups of honeypot ants 0:07:38.520 --> 0:07:42.800 happen upon the same resource, a tournament begins to determine 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:46.120 who shall claim it. So what happens is the workers 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.360 from each colony circle around each other, standing up as 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:52.880 high as possible on their legs. Behavior that biot is 0:07:52.960 --> 0:07:55.840 called stilting. So yes, what they're doing is they're trying 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.680 to look as imposing as possible, as large as possible. 0:08:00.120 --> 0:08:03.760 And basically, the idea here seems to be that that 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.640 that the larger colonies of honey pot ants tend to 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.080 have larger individuals. So it's not only a show of 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:12.680 immediate force, like hey, look how big we are to 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.520 get away from our resources. It's also a show of 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:20.080 what kind of backup forces you have to call in. 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.040 That's interesting. So it's just like you can almost count 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.640 on the fact that if if this ant is big, 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:28.880 all of her buddies are big too. Yeah. It actually 0:08:28.920 --> 0:08:31.480 reminds me a little bit of the Imperial invasion of 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:35.040 hot and the Empire strikes back with the deployment of 0:08:35.040 --> 0:08:39.080 those enormous A T eighties, which I recently saw described 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:44.160 online as quote a giant impractical terror weapon. Absolutely, Why 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:48.319 the legs? Why make your all terrain attack vehicles so 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.000 vulnerable to a simple harpoon and tow cable? These these 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:55.840 tall spindle legs make no sense. Well, yeah, if you 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:57.680 think too hard about it. But as my my son 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.319 was recently telling me, we were watching the Own War 0:09:00.440 --> 0:09:03.480 series and he said, you know, walkers are just always cool. 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.400 It doesn't matter which side they're on. They're just cool. 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:08.880 And it's true. But but I think also you can 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:11.079 look at it like, yes, it's a it's an impractical 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:13.880 terror weapon. It sends a message, Hey, we're the Empire 0:09:13.920 --> 0:09:17.320 and we have resources on this scale at our disposal, 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:20.080 so you'd best just abandoned the ice planet to us. 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:23.800 And so that's what the weaker honeypot at force ends 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:27.520 up doing this whole tournament. Uh practice limits the need 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:30.920 for conflict and avoids the need for full scale and war. 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.599 The smaller ant army flees, but much like the rebel alliance, 0:09:35.840 --> 0:09:38.480 they have to be darn sure that the forces there 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.160 uh they're seeding to don't follow them and trace them 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:46.920 to their primary base, because the larger honeypot force will 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.520 attempt to do this and they will not hesitate to 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:52.960 follow them back to their colony, decimate that colony, and 0:09:52.960 --> 0:09:57.640 then enslave the swollen repletes as their own food stores. Now, 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:00.400 this is really interesting, the idea that they they make 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.240 this display and try to make a calculation about whether 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.480 it's worthwhile to fight. It's something that goes against the 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.480 naive version of the nature red in tooth and claw 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:12.120 idea that you know, animals are just always fighting and 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:14.960 killing each other. It's always a violent struggle for survival. 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.000 I don't know how you could quantify this, but my 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:21.440 gut feeling is that the vast majority of conflicts in 0:10:21.559 --> 0:10:27.040 nature never come to violence. There are displays between animals 0:10:27.120 --> 0:10:30.520 and then one side backs down. Yeah, I believe we've 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:34.520 talked about this before and discussing like animal weapons and 0:10:34.760 --> 0:10:38.080 animal violence. Is that, you know, how often does one 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:41.600 animal outright kill another? You know it? I mean certainly 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.040 in from predation, Yeah, apart from predation. Like the idea 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.480 of two animals fighting to the death in a scenario 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:50.680 where one is not trying to eat the other is 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:52.840 is more of a rarity. But even so, It's like 0:10:52.880 --> 0:10:56.240 if you have a t rex and a triceratops, Like 0:10:56.360 --> 0:10:59.560 the t rex wants to kill the the triceratops in 0:10:59.559 --> 0:11:02.199 this scenario EO, but it of course does not want 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:06.240 to be killed itself the you know, so it would 0:11:06.320 --> 0:11:08.719 potentially fight to the death. But on the other hand, 0:11:08.720 --> 0:11:10.880 they try sterotops doesn't want to eat the t rex. 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:14.360 It just wants to not be eaten by the t rex. Yeah, 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:16.680 I mean, it just brings to mind the fact that 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:20.360 animals they don't want to lose a conflict, but probably 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.760 even more than that, they don't want to die, and 0:11:22.880 --> 0:11:25.600 so if if things are not looking like a like 0:11:25.640 --> 0:11:28.280 a pretty clear wind for them, they will very often 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.240 just back down and try to get away. Now EO. 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:36.040 Wilson and biologists Burnt a Whole Dobbler have have compared 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.400 this tournament scenario to these symbolic battles and the Highlands 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.680 of New Guinea, the initial phase of of of a 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:46.160 battle or war in which the two sides square off 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.680 at a distance, and what they'll do. Yeah, this so 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.839 the scrap at a distance. They're not going to immediately, 0:11:51.120 --> 0:11:52.920 you know, rush into each other like some sort of 0:11:52.920 --> 0:11:57.400 brave heart scenario that's cinematic um trope that we all 0:11:57.440 --> 0:12:00.720 have grown so used to. Instead, they're gonna throw o spears. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.040 They're gonna fire arrows at each other, but with range 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.600 in wooden shields in place, so there's actually like a 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:13.560 a low possibility for fatality. And from here it might 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:17.000 give way to a heated, closer battle, but the its 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.600 aggressions might actually end right here. And this apparently is 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:23.880 something that one sees throughout the history of human conflict, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:28.800 especially when it concerns smaller clans of fighters, because such 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.040 groups like this simply don't have the resources to enter 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.400 freely into a state of total warfare. Yeah, I think 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:39.240 that state is more common, as we were talking about earlier, 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:43.040 in in like larger empires, where you also have you know, 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:45.520 the army that arrives on the battlefield also has the 0:12:45.600 --> 0:12:48.360 force of like a huge state behind it that will 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:51.360 not let it walk away. It's a you know that 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:54.120 that maybe the emperor back home is not going to 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:56.800 be pleased if you see that this battle doesn't look 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:59.520 good for you and decide it's better not to fight, Yes, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:03.120 you'll find that he's not as forgiving, right. So Yeah, 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.200 I think this is obviously a smart strategy, and there's 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.719 a reason humans do this and ants do this. It 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:11.800 makes sense to try to avoid conflict if you can. 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:14.400 I also can't help but wonder if there's a comparison 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:15.880 to be made here. And this is just me, this 0:13:15.920 --> 0:13:18.960 is not any of these other commentators that I've read. 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.040 They might have gotten into this, and maybe I just 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:22.800 haven't read it, But I wonder if you can make 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:27.200 a comparison here to the proxy wars between superpowers in 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.240 the human world. You know, human cases in which each 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:34.120 side certainly has immense resources, but in which case the 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:39.720 destructive potential of atomic weaponry essentially reduces both sides to smaller, 0:13:39.960 --> 0:13:44.320 more vulnerable clans on their respective hillsides. There was something 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:46.600 I was trying to look up because this also made 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:50.520 me think of the at least epic literary tradition of 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:55.080 the champion warfare. That is, you know that you read 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:57.000 about it in the Iliad. It shows up actually in 0:13:57.000 --> 0:14:00.439 a lot of of ancient epics and stuff where armies 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.800 will meet, but instead of you know, the whole armies 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.480 clashing with one another, they will each select their greatest 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:09.160 fighter and then those two will fight a duel that 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.120 is supposed to, at least in some cases, symbolically settle 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.600 the outcome of the fight. So I think of Hector 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:19.560 versus Achilles, and I was looking for example. I was like, 0:14:19.600 --> 0:14:22.040 do aunts ever do this? So I was trying to 0:14:22.080 --> 0:14:25.560 find examples of champion warfare among ants, but I couldn't 0:14:25.600 --> 0:14:28.160 find anything. I don't know if you've come across anything 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.720 like that, But if there were an example of something 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:35.920 like that, that would be really interesting, that would man that. Yeah, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:38.440 I didn't read anything about that in the sources I 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:41.440 was looking at it. I wonder how that would have 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.560 something like that would evolve. You know, it's kind of 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.680 hard to imagine being a real state of affairs without 0:14:48.720 --> 0:14:52.480 I don't know, I guess symbolic thinking among I mean, 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:54.760 maybe that is something that would be limited. I mean, 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.840 it's even more than that. It seems like something that's 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:02.520 more limited to epic poetry and storytelling than than happens 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:05.480 in real life. Right. It kind of brings maybe it's 0:15:05.480 --> 0:15:07.560 the kind of story that makes the most sense for 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:10.400 people that are so centered on the individual, you know, 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:13.560 like here is the individual in the war, the individual 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.280 that is changing the course of the battle, that sort 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:19.360 of thing um, and it enables you to to take 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.960 larger scenarios of battle that are more difficult to fathom 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:26.160 and putting them in a one on one scenario, like 0:15:26.200 --> 0:15:28.080 in the last episode we were talking about the Lanchester 0:15:28.160 --> 0:15:30.240 square law. You know, we can you know, we can 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:33.240 certainly imagine that in our head with forces of on 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:35.480 one side versus the other. But then you can also 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.040 put it in the scenario of David and Goliath, right, 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:42.240 and there you instantly have this very individual based story 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:46.240 of smaller force and larger force. Even though it tells 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.600 it ultimately tells the story like if we were to 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.600 take that and extrapolate it to just a smaller force 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:55.240 against a larger force, uh per those laws we were discussing, 0:15:55.320 --> 0:15:58.440 that makes no sense. Like ultimately the the Goliath force 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.000 is going to win unless they is some sort of 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.040 crazy you know, outside context event, right or well, I 0:16:05.080 --> 0:16:07.800 mean it depends on conditions, right, because not all combat 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.680 is equivalent. But yeah, generally, all right, on that note, 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:12.600 we're going to take a quick break. But when we 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.240 come back, we will get into some of these specialized 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:21.880 units of the ant war than all right, we're back, Robert. 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.960 When you were a kid, did you get one of 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:29.240 those Star Wars visual encyclopedias and just like a devour 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:33.600 all of the different types of Star Wars stormtroopers that 0:16:33.680 --> 0:16:35.960 we never saw in the movies. Because in the movies 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:38.400 you see the main storm troopers. You see the ones 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:40.920 in the snow with like the big robes and capes. 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.360 Almost I guess that's to keep warm or something. But 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:46.960 then I remember reading about these other types that never 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:49.920 show up in the movies, like lava troopers or something. 0:16:50.080 --> 0:16:53.120 I don't know. Did you never read about this? Uh No, 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:55.840 I've never heard of lava troopers? Um? I mean, I'm trying, 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:58.720 I'm only vaguely remembering, but it seemed very interesting to me. 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:00.760 I was like, why isn't there a movie about that? 0:17:01.160 --> 0:17:04.080 I mean, it's it's drawing on the idea that, of course, 0:17:04.119 --> 0:17:07.960 you would have different types of specialized units for different terrain. Yeah, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.000 I uh, Star Wars specific I never had that book, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.480 but certainly, just by virtue of being into like miniature 0:17:15.520 --> 0:17:18.040 war games and even even you know, plenty of games 0:17:18.080 --> 0:17:20.520 I don't play or collecting, I love to just pour 0:17:20.680 --> 0:17:22.920 over the army list, like, Okay, here are your here 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:25.440 your ranking files, and okay, here your specialist. Here you're 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.960 you're fast moving troops. Here are you're heavy troops. Here 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:33.320 are you're infiltration units. Here you're close combat units. There's 0:17:33.640 --> 0:17:38.359 there's something, um yeah, just just endlessly appealing about about 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:41.960 going through the rank and file of a system like that. Totally. Uh. 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:44.400 And of course it shouldn't come as any surprise that 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:49.600 many different kinds of ants have their own specialized units. Yes, absolutely, 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:52.000 so we're gonna discuss some of these. We're not gonna 0:17:52.000 --> 0:17:53.560 be of course, We're not gonna be able to really 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:56.520 do justice to the entire rich diversity of the ant world, 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.399 you know, plenty of which is still being discovered and 0:17:59.480 --> 0:18:03.480 is yet to be uh discovered by scientists. But we'll 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.000 touch on some highlights here that are known. So first 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.600 I want to talk a little bit about specialized defenses. Uh. 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.640 You know, we've talked so much about offense with ants, uh, 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.439 but but sometimes said there's this particular defensive strategy in 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:20.160 mind as well. Zoologist and intomologist Shaun O'Donnell points out 0:18:20.200 --> 0:18:22.960 that leaf cutter ants and army ants are both dominant 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.920 ants species, and when they wage war, those wars can 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.040 wait for days. So it's a it's a classic matchup 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:31.760 in many respects, right, It's a you know, ravaging warriors 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:35.720 on one side and foraging agriculturists on the other. Right, 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:37.800 So you would think of the army antsw is primarily 0:18:37.840 --> 0:18:41.040 like rating carnivores that are on the attack, and the 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.760 leaf cutter ants are there their cultivators of their environment. Right. Yeah, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:49.240 So leaf cutter ants most very famously depend on their workers. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.040 They have to go out, they have to cut the 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.400 leaf portions, bring the leaf portions back, and then those 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.000 leaf portions are used to grow their precious food crop, 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.119 which is a fungus I believe, right, Yeah, fungus that 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:03.119 is uh if I remember correctly extinct in the wild, 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:07.359 is purely domesticated by ants long before humans came on 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.840 the scene. Unbelievable. So it's mostly the work of these, 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.439 you know, these female workers. But there they do have 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.840 a cast of larger soldiers, and apparently they were something 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:19.359 of a mystery for a while. Researchers would look at 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:21.119 them and they would ask, what are these guys for. 0:19:21.200 --> 0:19:23.000 They don't seem to be doing anything, They don't seem 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:27.280 to have a purpose. But by seating army and invasions 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.639 in leaf cutter nests, researchers were able to discover that 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.640 they seem to be specialists just for army ant invasions, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:38.040 sent to the front lines by the thousands, uh to 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:42.159 in an attempt to defend the colony. Even though it 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.280 does seem like they tend to fail in the end. 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:46.879 But I mean, even in cases where they fail, it's 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.400 possible they could be, say, buying time for the rest 0:19:49.440 --> 0:19:53.320 of the colony. Yeah, and it's interesting to look at that. 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.160 That's that reality in terms of how other ant species 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.399 deal with army ants, because apparently you very roughly you 0:20:00.480 --> 0:20:03.080 kind of have. You have two extremes. On one hand, 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:04.840 those they just put up a fight. They're like army 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.160 answer attacking, We're going to fight them back. We're gonna 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:09.600 give it everything we have. But then you also have 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:13.720 some varieties of ants that evacuate everybody at the first 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.359 sign of an attack. The army answer coming, So pack 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.480 it all up, we're getting out of here. But then 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:21.200 they can move back in after the invaders have left 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:23.320 because their army answer are not gonna live there. They're 0:20:23.320 --> 0:20:24.840 not gonna hang out in your colony and wait for 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.120 you to come back. They're they're they're here for the goods, 0:20:27.160 --> 0:20:29.040 and if the goods are not here, they have to 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:35.560 keep moving. Now here's another just super interesting adaptation. UM. 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.920 In the last episode, I mentioned Douglas j Emlin's book 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:41.840 Animal Weapons, which deals with the evolution of bioweapons and 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:44.840 organisms as well as the development of tool based weapons 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.600 and humans. And he discusses the feodole and genus in 0:20:48.600 --> 0:20:52.080 which individuals fall into various casts. So there, of course 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.800 the reproductive male and females. They're the small workers, they're 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.159 larger workers. And then there are the soldiers and the 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:04.040 soldiers of this genus boast quote grossly enlarged heads, jaws, 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:07.560 and teeth. Okay, these are these A particular ants are 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.199 also known as the big headed ants. But then he 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:13.520 also goes on to discuss another genus of ants. This 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:18.399 is Odonto Marcus, the trap jaw ants, whose lock and 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:22.520 release jaw structure functions a lot like a mantis shrimp. 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.560 You know, there's all this stored potential energy like a 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.360 crossbow that has been pulled back and locked. So when 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.000 these jaws shut on these trap jaw ants, they can 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.920 shut its speeds a one hundred and forty three miles 0:21:35.960 --> 0:21:40.199 per hour, so they slam shut really fast. Right, And 0:21:40.240 --> 0:21:42.840 here's where it gets That was a stupid restatement of 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:47.679 what you said. But let's keep it. Yes, very very fast, 0:21:48.280 --> 0:21:51.800 especially on this scale too. Right. Um. But but here's 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:53.520 where he gets even more in raising. This is where 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.000 he gets kind of cunning because the trap jaw ants, 0:21:56.040 --> 0:21:58.840 of course, they can release this bite at their adversaries, 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:02.520 but they can also unleashed this bite at the ground 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:06.840 and in doing so, launch themselves backwards through the air 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:11.879 twenty body lengths as a successful escape tactic. Wow. So 0:22:12.080 --> 0:22:15.440