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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're

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Speaker 1: bringing you an episode from the Vault. This is aunt

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Speaker 1: War's Part two, originally aired June. Let's let the aunt

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Speaker 1: Wars continue. Deliver thyself as a row from the hand

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Speaker 1: of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand

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Speaker 1: of the fowler. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider

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Speaker 1: her ways and be wise, which, having no guide, overseer,

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Speaker 1: or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth

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Speaker 1: her food in the harvest. Welcome to Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your mind. Production of My Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome

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Speaker 1: to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert

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Speaker 1: Lamb and I'm Joe mccorre mick. And that was a

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Speaker 1: reading from the King James translation of the Bible. It's

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Speaker 1: from the Book of Proverbs, chapter six. Uh. And I

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Speaker 1: was looking right before we started. I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: let me check my Scholarly Oxford annotated addition to the

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Speaker 1: Bible to see if it's got any insights on how

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Speaker 1: the author of this passage knew that all of the

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Speaker 1: worker ants in the colony were female and no it

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Speaker 1: just says this passage appeals to the natural world. I

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Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, because I had questions about this one.

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Speaker 1: I was not familiar with this passage. We just kind

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Speaker 1: of we're looking for for fun things to read at

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Speaker 1: the at the top of our our second Ant War episode,

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Speaker 1: and I was like, Oh, I wonder what the what

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Speaker 1: what the old King James version had to say about ants?

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Speaker 1: And here we are a verse that at once seems

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Speaker 1: to to get the gender of the vast majority of

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Speaker 1: an Ant colony correct and also doesn't get hung up

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Speaker 1: on the idea of a central ruler like in In

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Speaker 1: a couple of ways, this is a very um accurate

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Speaker 1: reading of Ant civilization. You know, I didn't even think

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Speaker 1: about it, but I'm sure that means this is one

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Speaker 1: of those verses that's been employed by a Christian apologists

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Speaker 1: to suggest the inherancy of the Bible, right because it

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Speaker 1: But but I gotta say this versus is pretty dead

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Speaker 1: on right. Uh. There is no guide overseer or ruler.

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Speaker 1: It's just the swarm intelligence that emerges from the ants

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Speaker 1: evolved instinct. And uh. And it's true the Ants are

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Speaker 1: not lazy, like I think that's the point of the passage.

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Speaker 1: It's like, look, the ant doesn't wait around try, you know,

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Speaker 1: wait around to be told what to do. It just

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Speaker 1: knows what to do and does it right. And of

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Speaker 1: course then there's this bit about the gathering of food

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Speaker 1: and the storing of food, which, depending on which species

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Speaker 1: you're looking at, is also really accurate. Of course, as

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Speaker 1: we continue to look at examples of of ant civilization

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Speaker 1: and ant warfare, we're gonna get into some examples that

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Speaker 1: they are a bit more barbaric and uh ravageing. I

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Speaker 1: guess yeah, for a biblical parallels, some of these aunt

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Speaker 1: stories are going to be closer to the conquest of

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Speaker 1: Canaan than the Wisdom of Proverbs. But this is funny

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Speaker 1: because it also brings up the idea of you know,

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Speaker 1: in the last episode we were talking about obviously ancient

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Speaker 1: people had been looking at ants and trying to understand

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Speaker 1: their behavior long before there was a unified scientific study.

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Speaker 1: You know, a field known as entomology and the comparison

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Speaker 1: to military forces and armies has been there since ancient times.

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Speaker 1: But I think this is definitely not the only case

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Speaker 1: where people read spiritual significance into ant behavior. No, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I was I was reading about this, and ants have

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Speaker 1: a sacred role in a number of different religions. In

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Speaker 1: some African traditions, they are considered messengers of the gods.

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Speaker 1: And throughout India you'll find various customs that involve protecting

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Speaker 1: antlines and ant hills, even uh, leaving out food for

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Speaker 1: the ant hills or decorating them in some slight fashion,

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Speaker 1: like you know, the sprinkling of of you know, some

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Speaker 1: sort of colored or that sort of thing, and and

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Speaker 1: likewise it's considered heinous to disturb an ant hill. Especially.

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Speaker 1: I was reading about all this in a book titled

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Speaker 1: The Sacred Animals of India by Nandita Krishna, which is

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Speaker 1: an excellent little book from Penguin Press. You can pick

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Speaker 1: it up like most most places. I think I picked

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Speaker 1: it up at a yoga studio once while I was

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Speaker 1: waiting and waiting for my wife to get her shoes on,

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Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, what's this a book about animals.

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Speaker 1: I started leaving through it, and it's just animal by animal, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, some some some fascinating facts about how it

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Speaker 1: ties into Hindu traditions. But then also sometimes there's a

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Speaker 1: little science as well, so like there's a bit about

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Speaker 1: the ant and they also touch on some of the

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Speaker 1: basic facts about ants and their role in ecology that

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Speaker 1: we've been discussing here. But in this book the author

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Speaker 1: describes a couple of cool details. First of all, a

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Speaker 1: tale in which in Indra desires a glorious palace. So

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Speaker 1: Vishnu comes to him and points out a line of

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Speaker 1: ants in the dirt and tells him that each and

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Speaker 1: every one of them is an Indra that rose to

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Speaker 1: the highest level of existence and then fell down again

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Speaker 1: via pride. So there's a you know, this recurring idea

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Speaker 1: that ants, like all these other animals, are part of

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Speaker 1: the cycle of rebirth. The author also mentions that Valmiki,

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Speaker 1: the author of the Ramayana, emerged from an ant hill

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Speaker 1: or a Valmika after ten years of meditation. So in

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Speaker 1: this case, the the author um of the Hindu epic

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Speaker 1: ends up taking on the name of the ant hill

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Speaker 1: as part of their new emerged identity. That's interesting and

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive because it imagines the ant hill as a place

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Speaker 1: that would be appropriate for meditation, solitude, you know, like

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Speaker 1: quiet contemplation, Whereas when I think of an ant hill,

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Speaker 1: I would think of the exact opposite something that is

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Speaker 1: certainly organized from from the ant's own genetic point of view,

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Speaker 1: but us looking down at it, it's so chaotic and frenzied,

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Speaker 1: it seemed like it would be impossible to focus. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but then I guess you could also look at it

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Speaker 1: as a place of just pure order or to really

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Speaker 1: get into I guess some more of a you know,

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Speaker 1: a topic that's important in Hindu epics, a place of

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Speaker 1: pure duty, Like there's just there's you know, absolute duty

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Speaker 1: uh youth, social duty to the colony, and there's no

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Speaker 1: there's no room for aunt despair or aunt ambition. You know,

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Speaker 1: you're not going to be pulled in either of those directions.

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Speaker 1: It's just pure absolute duty. So really it's it's an

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Speaker 1: ideal place to fall um if you you know, you

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Speaker 1: achieve some demigotic state of pride and UH and then

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Speaker 1: have to you know, fall back down to a lower

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Speaker 1: life form and then work your way back up. And

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Speaker 1: it's a good place to start. Kind of a form

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Speaker 1: of contrapostito, right, like the idea that the divine punishment

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Speaker 1: or not necessarily punishment either, but the the divine justice

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Speaker 1: somehow fits the UH fits the original offense that brought

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Speaker 1: it on. Yeah, So if you're joining us in this

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Speaker 1: so do you've probably figured out that we're talking about

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Speaker 1: ants and uh. And this is indeed the second in

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Speaker 1: our aunt wars Um series. So if you didn't listen

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Speaker 1: to the last episode, we would recommend you go back

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Speaker 1: and give it a listen. We discussed the empire, the ants,

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Speaker 1: and and very broadly the endless wars that formed the

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Speaker 1: boundaries of their individual kingdoms. I want to go back

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Speaker 1: again to the writings of Mark W. Moffatt Uh and

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Speaker 1: this is from that Scientific American article that I previously

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Speaker 1: mentioned that's also hosted on his website at dr bugs

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Speaker 1: dot com. He writes, quote, in Ghana, I witness deceiving

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Speaker 1: carpet of workers of the army ants species Dori lists

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Speaker 1: Nigricans searching together across an area hundred feet wide. These

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Speaker 1: African army ants, which in species such as D niger

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Speaker 1: Kans that move and broad swaths, are called driver ants,

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Speaker 1: slice the flesh off their enemy or quarry with blade

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Speaker 1: like jaws and can make short work of victims thousands

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Speaker 1: of times their size, Although vertebrate creatures can usually outrun ants.

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Speaker 1: In Gabon, I once saw an antelope caught in a snare,

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Speaker 1: eaten alive by a colony of driver ants. That highlights

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Speaker 1: something that I was planning on talking about in just

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Speaker 1: a little bit when we get to one particular species

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Speaker 1: of army and that I was finding really fascinating. But uh,

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Speaker 1: but I guess we can address it now. So, you know,

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Speaker 1: the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull vision, which goes back

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Speaker 1: to earlier movies and stuff where the the army ants

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Speaker 1: essentially are terrestrial movie piranha. You know, you've got the

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Speaker 1: You've got the Hollywood acid that that strips the human

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Speaker 1: to the bone in in seconds. You've got the Hollywood

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Speaker 1: piranha that stripped the human to the bone in seconds.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if either of those are really very

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Speaker 1: accurately reflective of stuff that happens in the real world.

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Speaker 1: And then the answer the next thing, the Hollywood army

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Speaker 1: ants that just sterilize your skeleton. Uh, that that doesn't

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Speaker 1: seem to be something that happens in reality. Certainly not.

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Speaker 1: I would say, with a with a large animal that

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Speaker 1: can move, a lot of army ants are are going

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Speaker 1: to be absolutely apocalyptic in their implications for smaller animals,

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Speaker 1: for insects, arachnids, centipedes, and even small vertebrates like little

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Speaker 1: frogs and snakes and stuff. But larger animals they don't

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Speaker 1: actually represent a threat like that, Like you can easily

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Speaker 1: get away from them. The only case I would imagine

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Speaker 1: where army ants might represent a real threat to larger

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Speaker 1: animals would be if you are totally immobilized, right, so

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Speaker 1: if you're caught in a snare, buried up to your

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Speaker 1: neck in the sand, that sort of thing. Right, And

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Speaker 1: even then I don't know if they would necessarily kill you,

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Speaker 1: because they're they're looking for their their main prey species,

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Speaker 1: which are going to be all kinds of invertebrates. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they're probably going after something like termites or other ants. Uh,

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Speaker 1: heads sticking out of the ground not really on the

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Speaker 1: menu usually, But but I wouldn't want to try it.

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying necessarily safe. That could be the next

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Speaker 1: big Hollywood magician act though, right, David Blame, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'd be surprised if he hasn't done it already. Well, no,

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Speaker 1: it's the next big confidence game, you know. So they

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Speaker 1: got to walk across the hot coals. That's like the

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Speaker 1: confidence building exercise. But the next stage is the bury

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Speaker 1: yourself up to the neck and let the army ants

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Speaker 1: come now. Well, another a little piece of health cleaning

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Speaker 1: from the last episode I want to throw in here.

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Speaker 1: In the last episode, I briefly mentioned pheromones as being

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Speaker 1: essential to aunt communication. And I don't want to gloss

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Speaker 1: over this too much because I imagine many of you

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Speaker 1: have have seen videos of pheromonal demonstrations, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the the the ant Overlord. EO. Wilson himself does this

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Speaker 1: at times, in which a pheromone is painted like a

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Speaker 1: paintbrush or a Q tip or something across the surface

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Speaker 1: and then ants follow it and is informative as as

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Speaker 1: a demonstration like this can be, don't take it to

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Speaker 1: mean that there's just there's a real blunt simplicity to it.

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Speaker 1: As as Wilson himself stresses, there is a pheromonal language

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Speaker 1: for ants. Uh. Any given ant species us as a

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Speaker 1: whole palette of pheromones and chemical signals to communicate. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it can be very complex, though there are also very

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Speaker 1: simple ways to see it in action and like creating

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Speaker 1: the pheromone trails that are like. EO. Wilson was involved

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Speaker 1: in research that discovered one of the main glands in

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Speaker 1: the ants gaster that deposits the pheromone that creates the

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Speaker 1: trail leading to food. And generally if you deposit this

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Speaker 1: pheromone as you will see, you know, humans can extract

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Speaker 1: it and put it in the bottle like you're saying.

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Speaker 1: To these demonstrations where you just put a line of

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Speaker 1: it down on a table and suddenly the ants form

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Speaker 1: up and follow the line, those can be striking direct demonstrations,

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Speaker 1: even though the full web of pheromonal interactions can be

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Speaker 1: much more complex, and you can also is easily do

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Speaker 1: this yourself, even without um the extraction of that kind

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Speaker 1: of pheromone simply by if you've ever tried dragging your

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Speaker 1: finger across an ant trail, where like you know, if

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Speaker 1: you can smudge the chemicals away and maybe disrupt it

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Speaker 1: with some of the oils from your own finger, suddenly

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Speaker 1: the movement of the ants becomes chaotic, gets all confused

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Speaker 1: because the deposition of chemicals that has created this trail

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Speaker 1: has been broken. I've been I've been noticing these antrei

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Speaker 1: an trails a lot more on my walks recently. Uh,

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Speaker 1: my family and I will go out to some various

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Speaker 1: nature walking by trails in the area that they're not

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Speaker 1: that populated, and some of them haply you know, slabs

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Speaker 1: of concrete, and they'll be these little, essentially a little

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Speaker 1: trenches that stretch across them where one slab meets the other.

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Speaker 1: And invariably those are the trenches through which the ants moved,

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Speaker 1: not over the top where they're going to potentially get

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Speaker 1: smashed by a by bicycle tires are stepped on more easily. No,

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Speaker 1: they're in the trenches, moving across from one side to

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Speaker 1: the other. It almost makes me wonder if we've unintentionally

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Speaker 1: created little bridges or tunnels for the ants, the same

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Speaker 1: way that on Christmas Island they have to create these

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Speaker 1: crab bridges and tunnels for crabs to let their migration

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Speaker 1: get across the roads. Yeah, it does seem like that,

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Speaker 1: like accidental um pro ant design. Uh. Now, speaking of

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Speaker 1: E O. Wilson, I want to point out to everybody

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Speaker 1: we talked about EO. Wilson on the show before Anio.

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Speaker 1: Wilson has of course authored a number of books, uh,

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Speaker 1: many of which are are ideal for a general audience.

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Speaker 1: But if you want to watch a documentary about him,

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Speaker 1: there is a wonderful PBS documentary that came out several

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Speaker 1: years ago titled EO. Wilson of Ants and Men. You

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Speaker 1: can probably get it wherever you stream PBS content. I

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Speaker 1: know that at least in the United States you can

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Speaker 1: get it on Prime. Uh. It's really good. Yeah, it's so.

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Speaker 1: I started watching it. I haven't finished yet. I watched

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Speaker 1: the first half and it's just a delight. There's a

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Speaker 1: great moment where so EO. Wilson, you know, one of

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Speaker 1: the world authorities on ants, revolutionary biologist for the world

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Speaker 1: of youth social insects, and he says at one point,

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Speaker 1: he says, the question people want to know the answer

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Speaker 1: to most often about ants is what do I do

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Speaker 1: about the ones in my kitchen? And then he says, uh,

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Speaker 1: and here's what I tell them. You get a little

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Speaker 1: piece of a cookie and you put it down near

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Speaker 1: the ants, and then you watch what they do. I

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Speaker 1: love that answer because, on one hand, it feels like

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Speaker 1: maybe he's trying to teach us something like, Oh, he's

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Speaker 1: trying to teach me a lesson about why the answer

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Speaker 1: there to begin with, you know, I need to watch

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Speaker 1: I need to make sure my kitchen is clean. I

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Speaker 1: mean to make sure there's no there's no food product,

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Speaker 1: or I need to think about why they've invaded my kitchen.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, it seems just as likely

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Speaker 1: that he's saying, you're not going to do anything about

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Speaker 1: these ants. You're going to enjoy them. You're going to

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Speaker 1: you're going to feed them and watch how they work.

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Speaker 1: There there's a beautiful stoicism and enjoy in the way

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Speaker 1: that he observes ants even as they are, you know,

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Speaker 1: doing things that most people would regard as an offense

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Speaker 1: or an irritation. You know, we talked several times now

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Speaker 1: about like the scene where he's just letting all the

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Speaker 1: fire ants sting his hand and he's watching it with

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Speaker 1: with such fascination and talking about what's going on is

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Speaker 1: they're all attacking his skin at the same time. And

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Speaker 1: uh and then yeah, and this is basically the same attitude,

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Speaker 1: but with the kitchen instead of your hand. It's like, no,

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Speaker 1: don't get upset, just take pleasure in watching nature work.

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Speaker 1: Oh and by the way, Wilson has a new book

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Speaker 1: on ants coming out this fall. I noticed, called Tales

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Speaker 1: from the Ant World. Alright, on that note, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: take one quick break but we'll be right back, and

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Speaker 1: we'll return to the world of the ants and the

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Speaker 1: wars that they rage. Thank alright, we're back. One of

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Speaker 1: the other sources that I was using in reading about

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Speaker 1: ants for these episodes is the excellent book Animal Weapons

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Speaker 1: by Douglas J. Mlin, And in it the author has

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Speaker 1: has a whole bit where he's describing basically, the whole

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Speaker 1: book has to do with with bioweapons and the evolution

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Speaker 1: of bioweapons and organisms and then comparing them to human warfare.

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Speaker 1: But there's a whole bit where he's talking about the

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Speaker 1: quote giant jaws and thick distinct heads of the army

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Speaker 1: ants that allow them in mass to topple so many opponents,

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Speaker 1: and he shares a fun bit of experience that really

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Speaker 1: underlies just how you know, powerful the design is on

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Speaker 1: these little guys, uh, little gals rather um. Basically, he

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Speaker 1: was an outdoing field of some field experiments in Belize,

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Speaker 1: and he accidentally sliced his thumb with a machete, and

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Speaker 1: without anything else to stitch up the wound, this is

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Speaker 1: what they did. First of all, they did have some

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Speaker 1: rum on them, so they stailized the wound with rum.

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Speaker 1: But then they suitured the wound with ants. They simply

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Speaker 1: placed the ants live ants allow along the line of

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Speaker 1: the cut while someone held the cut together and allowed

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Speaker 1: their little jaws to snap into place. And then they

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Speaker 1: tore the body away from the head and the heads

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Speaker 1: of which they only required five or six, kept their

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Speaker 1: jaws latch tight and this held the wound together and

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Speaker 1: allowed them to eventually get proper medical attention for the cut.

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Speaker 1: I would say, uh, if I just heard this story

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Speaker 1: in isolation, I would be inclined to doubt it. It

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Speaker 1: seems so hard to believe. But I mean, obviously I

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Speaker 1: don't think England's lying about this. But that's just that's amazing. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's I mean, this is it's also a great illustration

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Speaker 1: of like of a scientist, you know, thinking about about

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Speaker 1: how to solve a problem. I would never have thought, oh,

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Speaker 1: i'm cut, I really need to let's get some ants

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Speaker 1: attached to this wound. But but it's it's also just

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Speaker 1: a wonderful um uh, you know the description of just

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Speaker 1: how powerful these little jaws are. Now army and marauder

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Speaker 1: ants wage their war for food uh and resources. They

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Speaker 1: will battle other forces for control of food resources and

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Speaker 1: will also invade other ants societies in order to claim

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Speaker 1: their larva and their pupa as food. Yeah, and these

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Speaker 1: are some of the most striking types of ants that

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Speaker 1: we see. I mean, you know, we're familiar with aunt

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Speaker 1: warfare that we've discussed before, say between h different types

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Speaker 1: of fire ants, even here in the in the Southern

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Speaker 1: United States. But seeing ants that forage on the scale

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Speaker 1: and with the tenacity of army ants or marauder ants,

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Speaker 1: is is a different kind of thing. This might be

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Speaker 1: a good place to pause and appreciate the marvel of

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Speaker 1: this one species of army ant that I've been reading

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Speaker 1: into a lot. Uh. And this is the species known

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Speaker 1: as eston Bercelli. I Uh. There are there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of actually different species of ant that are commonly

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Speaker 1: referred to as army ants, but seton Bricelli i is

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Speaker 1: I think the one species that people are most often

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Speaker 1: talking about with that general title. They're very charismatic, well

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Speaker 1: observed and distributed species. They live in the humid equatorial

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Speaker 1: regions of Central and South America, especially in the Amazon rainforest,

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Speaker 1: but with the range extending up through Mexico and down

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Speaker 1: south of Brazil into Argentina. Uh. But they're primarily in

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Speaker 1: the equatorial rainforest, and these ants will form colonies of

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Speaker 1: several hundred thousand adults at a time. With this rapacious

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Speaker 1: foraging behavior, you're satisfying the energy needs of the colony

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Speaker 1: with raids that cover hundreds of meters. According to one estimate,

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Speaker 1: I believe this was cited by Carl and Marion rhetton Meyer,

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Speaker 1: who I'll mention again in a moment. They're aunt experts.

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Speaker 1: But the figure is that on average, each colony of

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Speaker 1: Seton Bricelli I kills and eats about thirty thousand small

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Speaker 1: animals every day, wow, thirty every single day. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: so they have this carnivorous diet, this enormous carnivorous diet

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Speaker 1: that is especially important because they're trying to supply the

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Speaker 1: developing larvae of their colony with a high fat diet

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Speaker 1: that the larvae need in order to grow, so that

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Speaker 1: the babies need animal fat and the adults go out rating.

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Speaker 1: So there's another really interesting thing about this species to me,

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Speaker 1: which is that they do not make permanent nests. Seton

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Speaker 1: Bricelli I do not make permanent nests. We often think

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Speaker 1: of ant colonies as defined by their nests right the

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Speaker 1: ant hills. Ants are environmental engineers, but due to the

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Speaker 1: energy needs of this species, they can't be tied down

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Speaker 1: to one place for too long. Imagine them trying to

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Speaker 1: form a permanent nest while their larvae are growing, and

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Speaker 1: they have these huge requirements for animal fat, you know,

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Speaker 1: other insects to bring in and all that. Within a

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Speaker 1: day or two they probably would have cleared out all

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Speaker 1: of the food sources within I don't know, maybe a

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Speaker 1: few hundred square meters of wherever they are. So instead,

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Speaker 1: Esset and Bricelli I builds a mobile fortress known as

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Speaker 1: a bivouac. This is a moving fortress that protects the

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Speaker 1: queen and the developing larvae. But the fortress is made

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Speaker 1: not out of structures or materials from the environment. It

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Speaker 1: is made out of ants. Do you see Do you understand?

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Speaker 1: It is a war rig for ants, made out of

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Speaker 1: the interlocked bodies of living ants, like a cage of

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Speaker 1: millions of legs, antennae, and mandibles. I want to quote

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Speaker 1: from Peter Tyson, writing for Nova in an article about

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Speaker 1: these things. Quote this elliptical mass talking about the bivouac.

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Speaker 1: This elliptical mass maybe three feet across and hold up

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Speaker 1: to seven hundred thousand ants. When they need to move

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Speaker 1: to a new site, where they bivouac on the surface

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Speaker 1: rather than build a nest. Eber Chellii workers go first

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Speaker 1: ferrying food and larvae. Only after nightfall does the queen follow,

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Speaker 1: escorted by a mass of soldier ants that completely surround

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Speaker 1: her and will defend her with their lives. So the

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Speaker 1: bivouac again, is this moving fortress. The queen is inside

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Speaker 1: and the cage cannot be breached. Uh. This this was

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Speaker 1: just so captivating to me. And so if you're looking

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Speaker 1: for these things in the forest, the bivouac can sometimes

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Speaker 1: be found inside a hollow log or just on the

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Speaker 1: forest floor, but also sometimes it can be found hanging

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Speaker 1: suspended from tree limbs. So imagine that like a dangling

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Speaker 1: fortress for ants made out of ants, and it falls

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Speaker 1: in line with a more general tendency of some ant species,

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Speaker 1: including this one, toward body based engineering projects. These army

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Speaker 1: ants are also known to say assist the mobility of

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Speaker 1: their forces by filling in potholes along the foraging route

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Speaker 1: with plugs made out of live ants. So you just

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Speaker 1: smooth over, smooth over the surface with ants, or also

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Speaker 1: for building bridges out of themselves to allow the rest

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Speaker 1: of the army to cross gaps. And apparently these big

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Speaker 1: wax also emit an other worldly stinch, this amazing smell

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Speaker 1: that allows you to locate them by smell alone within

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Speaker 1: the rainforest. I would love to know what this smells like.

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Speaker 1: You know, all of this is a wonderful example two

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Speaker 1: of the super organism aspects of ants. How with other creatures,

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Speaker 1: we we we we talk about the individual, you know,

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Speaker 1: and in terms of understanding the species. But but with ants,

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Speaker 1: you look at behaviors like this, and you see there's

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Speaker 1: such cohesion, there's there's there's such you social um perfection

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Speaker 1: that you can't look at an individual aunt to understand,

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Speaker 1: and you have to look at what the colony itself

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Speaker 1: is doing. But there's another thing I was thinking about

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Speaker 1: with this model of ant life, the fact that these

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Speaker 1: ants create no permanent nests. It sort of reminds me

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Speaker 1: of the idea of the strategic advantage of offense. You know,

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Speaker 1: the old saying that the best defense is a good offense.

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Speaker 1: This is actually considered true in some cases in military theory,

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Speaker 1: because the reasoning goes that when you're on the attack,

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Speaker 1: you have freedom. Basically, you like, as you're on the attack,

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Speaker 1: you are creating options for yourself, versus when you're defending,

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Speaker 1: you have constraints, you have limited options. This is often

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Speaker 1: true just for example in chess. Uh. You know the

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Speaker 1: chess players talk about the initiative that you gain when

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Speaker 1: you're on the attack. You're constantly limiting the options for

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00:24:08,680 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: your opponents next move if they have to defend their

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Speaker 1: pieces against an attack that you just set up. And

429
00:24:15,800 --> 00:24:18,520
Speaker 1: this is obviously true across multiple context It's known as

430
00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:23,200
Speaker 1: maintaining the initiative. Now, obviously there are there are many uh,

431
00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:26,000
Speaker 1: there are many advantages you can get from having a

432
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,160
Speaker 1: defensive structure like a nest that's buried down in the ground.

433
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 1: You know, the queen is very well protected, but that

434
00:24:31,880 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: also limits your options, right and and this is sort

435
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,239
Speaker 1: of the all offense strategy of the ant world. Well,

436
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: it seems to be working well for them. I mean

437
00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:42,879
Speaker 1: it's not like they busted this strategy out of on

438
00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:47,600
Speaker 1: a test basis. This is this has been honed over

439
00:24:48,200 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 1: for millions of years. So there's another thing that I

440
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:53,679
Speaker 1: was thinking about because I was thinking about warfare and

441
00:24:53,760 --> 00:24:56,280
Speaker 1: game of thrones. And one thing I like that's acknowledged

442
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:58,879
Speaker 1: in those books is sort of like the real resource

443
00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 1: needs of moving armies. You know, It's not like a

444
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,359
Speaker 1: lot of fantasy where it's just sort of like uh,

445
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 1: almost ethereal warriors just ranging limitlessly to do their heroic deeds.

446
00:25:10,400 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: You know, I mean, like you get the idea in

447
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: those books that, like, our armies need supplies and all that.

448
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 1: And and also it's acknowledged that there are huge numbers

449
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: of people that accompany armies that are not themselves warriors.

450
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 1: These are known as camp followers, and this is absolutely

451
00:25:26,680 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: something that that happens in real warfare. Large armies don't

452
00:25:30,600 --> 00:25:33,320
Speaker 1: operate in a vacuum. They have material needs that are

453
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:37,719
Speaker 1: not necessarily related to battle, and they also create needs

454
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:41,639
Speaker 1: and opportunities for resource capture as they move and fight.

455
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: And this this is why armies on campaign or historically

456
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 1: a company both by camp followers that you know might

457
00:25:47,840 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 1: like sell things to soldiers, or might be family members

458
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 1: of soldiers, or sell services to soldiers, um that kind

459
00:25:55,960 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: of thing. But they are also often bandits that follow

460
00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:01,879
Speaker 1: around moving armies. As you know, when an army comes

461
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:06,520
Speaker 1: in and attacks somewhere disturbs the existing order, that creates

462
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities to exploit. Yeah. I mean it's

463
00:26:09,520 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: an absolute disruption, so it makes sense that opportunists would

464
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: be there to take advantage of it. And I agree.

465
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,119
Speaker 1: I think this is something that that that that is

466
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,280
Speaker 1: well explored in the Song of Ice and Fire books,

467
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:25,560
Speaker 1: the idea of of war that just you know, ravages

468
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: the countryside in so many ways, like it just just

469
00:26:28,840 --> 00:26:32,959
Speaker 1: totally destroys all the resources in the area. Um. I

470
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 1: think I think they probably, I think they probably brought

471
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:38,560
Speaker 1: this out well in this series to to a certain extent,

472
00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: especially early on. Yeah, I mean towards the end of

473
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:45,400
Speaker 1: that those human wars like West Ross is just decimated

474
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:49,040
Speaker 1: and just tired and exhausted. Yeah, that's true. I mean

475
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 1: it reflects reality that that the war is not just

476
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,000
Speaker 1: a clash between armies, but it's the sort of the

477
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:59,800
Speaker 1: army versus the entire environment and everyone living within it. Um.

478
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,919
Speaker 1: And I think this is in some ways very true

479
00:27:03,640 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 1: uh for ants as well. I was reading a really

480
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: good article. Uh it was a short article, but a

481
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 1: good one in nat Geo by the always great Ed

482
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 1: young Um that was focused on work by Carl and

483
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: Marian rhetten Meyer. I mentioned them a minute ago. These

484
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:23,879
Speaker 1: are ant experts who created a nearly exhaustive catalog of

485
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 1: all of the animals that follow the army ant species

486
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 1: seton Bercellii. So these are the camp followers in the

487
00:27:31,640 --> 00:27:37,000
Speaker 1: bandits that accompany this army uh, ed writes quote there's

488
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 1: no doubting their success as predators, but army ants also

489
00:27:40,240 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: bring life wherever they march. They have an entourage of

490
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: over five hundred and fifty species that hang around their legions,

491
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,800
Speaker 1: of which three hundred or so depend on the ants

492
00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:55,479
Speaker 1: for their survival. So in their disruption of of the

493
00:27:55,560 --> 00:28:00,119
Speaker 1: environment around them, they are also creating enough opportunities for

494
00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: the exploitation of resources that a full like three hundred

495
00:28:04,160 --> 00:28:07,200
Speaker 1: or so species couldn't live without these ants, and another

496
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:10,679
Speaker 1: two hundred something or so uh depend on them in

497
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: large ways. Wow, that's impressive. You know, I hadn't really

498
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 1: thought about it. We talked about the ecological importance of

499
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:20,320
Speaker 1: the hants, um and UH and this is just another

500
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:24,159
Speaker 1: example of that. Yeah, So this includes like two hundred

501
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 1: or so species of bird. One example is the oscillated

502
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,640
Speaker 1: ant bird. There are a number of antbirds ants as

503
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 1: they As they move along the army, ants will flush

504
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:37,600
Speaker 1: insects out of hiding. They'll flush out insects, arachnids, small invertebrates,

505
00:28:37,720 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 1: and and so the ant birds will watch this happen

506
00:28:40,760 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: and swoop in and take advantage of the fleeing animals. Uh.

507
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:48,239
Speaker 1: They actually almost never prey on the ants themselves. And

508
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: so the antbirds will fly around the forest checking in

509
00:28:51,520 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 1: on seething bivouacs. Right they perform a bivouac check, They're like, okay,

510
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:59,360
Speaker 1: is this bivouac about to march? And if it looks

511
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: like one is about to get the war rig ready

512
00:29:01,240 --> 00:29:04,240
Speaker 1: and send its workers out on raids, the birds will

513
00:29:04,280 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: converge here and start looking for opportunities. Apparently, the ant

514
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,200
Speaker 1: birds will fight amongst each other for the best spots.

515
00:29:11,240 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: Of course, the best spot would basically be positioned just

516
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 1: beyond the advancing front to catch all of the panic

517
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: pray animals as soon as they're driven out of hiding. Interesting.

518
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: You know, I wonder if anyone's ever tackled this from

519
00:29:23,480 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: a sci fi perspective. You know, we're always encountering situations

520
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: in sci fi where humanity is locked in an epic

521
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: strup will struggle against some alien adversary or there or

522
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: they've been partially wiped out by an alien adversary. I

523
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: wonder if anyone's ever explored the idea of of, you know,

524
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,720
Speaker 1: the alien force comes that decimates the planet. You end

525
00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: up with like a post apocalyptic scenario. But then the

526
00:29:45,560 --> 00:29:49,320
Speaker 1: primary antagonist is not the destroyer, because the destroyers moved on.

527
00:29:49,680 --> 00:29:52,320
Speaker 1: It's the opportunists to come in their wake, right, the

528
00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:55,080
Speaker 1: ant birds and the scavengers that come in after Earth

529
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:57,880
Speaker 1: has been Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that would be

530
00:29:57,880 --> 00:30:00,520
Speaker 1: an interesting thing. I've never read anything like that, but

531
00:30:00,640 --> 00:30:03,040
Speaker 1: I bet somebody has tried that idea. Yeah. Well, if

532
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:05,239
Speaker 1: they have, someone tell me what it is. And if

533
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 1: it doesn't exist, somebody write it so I can read it.

534
00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,280
Speaker 1: You know. Another interesting thing about these ant birds at

535
00:30:11,360 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 1: Young points out is that on top of them existing

536
00:30:14,120 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 1: as as sort of opportunists in what the ants do,

537
00:30:17,280 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 1: there are secondary opportunists. And these are a lot of

538
00:30:21,200 --> 00:30:25,200
Speaker 1: species of butterflies that follow the ant birds to feed

539
00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:28,120
Speaker 1: off of their droppings after they have preyed on the

540
00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,560
Speaker 1: insects and other animals that are fleshed out by the ants.

541
00:30:31,640 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: But beyond that, that there are a lot of other species,

542
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:37,440
Speaker 1: and there's not just species looking for food resources. Apparently

543
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,680
Speaker 1: parasitic wasps and flies that reproduced by implanting larvae in

544
00:30:41,720 --> 00:30:45,959
Speaker 1: the bodies of other invertebrates. They also follow army ants warms,

545
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: watching for the ants to drive crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches and

546
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 1: other critters out of hiding, and then the parasites take

547
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: immediate advantage at young sites caladoxia flies, but also quote

548
00:30:58,440 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 1: stylo gaster flies which shoot harpoon like eggs at fleeing cockroaches,

549
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: and and flesh flies that lay their eggs in the

550
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 1: open wounds of animals that have been injured but not

551
00:31:11,880 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: dismembered by the ants. So in some cases, not being

552
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: killed by the ant horde um is worse than actually

553
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: being decimated by it. Well, I guess it depends on

554
00:31:24,600 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 1: what you think is worse. I mean, is it worse

555
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:29,000
Speaker 1: to be injured by ants and then get maggots implanted

556
00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:31,480
Speaker 1: in you, or just to be killed just to be

557
00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 1: disassembled outright? Yeah. Even more amazingly, some parasites actually live

558
00:31:36,840 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 1: within the ant bivouax themselves, having various adaptations. We've talked

559
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,560
Speaker 1: about aunt mimics before. There are apparently some species like this,

560
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: like beetles that survived by mimicking ants and just sort

561
00:31:48,320 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 1: of like hanging out among the ants trying to be undetected.

562
00:31:53,120 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 1: But this was my favorite part. Ed Young writes that

563
00:31:55,520 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: some parasites quote use the ants as mobile restaurants, jumping

564
00:32:01,240 --> 00:32:05,080
Speaker 1: onto workers that are carrying food and eating their booty

565
00:32:05,320 --> 00:32:09,440
Speaker 1: right under or over their very jaws. So they hang

566
00:32:09,440 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 1: out on the ant head eating the food that the

567
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 1: ant is carrying. Oh wow, again, I think for a

568
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:19,240
Speaker 1: lot of species this would require very special adaptations or

569
00:32:19,440 --> 00:32:24,040
Speaker 1: you know, you would immediately become prey yourself. But it's

570
00:32:24,040 --> 00:32:28,320
Speaker 1: just amazing to imagine the tiny, like full ecosystems basically

571
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:32,840
Speaker 1: that are made possible by the opportunities created by the

572
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,280
Speaker 1: chaos of a rating army. Yeah, in a way, you

573
00:32:36,360 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: kind of have to come back to that that analogy

574
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: of the superorganism, right, that the the ant colony is,

575
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: well we might think of as the individual, like the

576
00:32:45,120 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: ant colony is the body, and so it is going

577
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:50,480
Speaker 1: to have its own parasite. It's going to have its

578
00:32:50,520 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: own symbiotic relationships and uh and and that's kind of

579
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here. Absolutely, I think this is just

580
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:00,719
Speaker 1: the most astonishing species. I feel like maybe we're not

581
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: even done with with with Ston. We can move on

582
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,520
Speaker 1: in this episode, but but we may have to come

583
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:08,640
Speaker 1: back to them in the future. All right, and that note,

584
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: we're going to take a quick break, but when we

585
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: come back, we will consider the marauder ants. All Right,

586
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:21,560
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've already talked some about ant species

587
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:24,800
Speaker 1: that are referred to as the marauder ants. You read

588
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 1: a passage from one of those articles by Martin W.

589
00:33:27,280 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 1: Moffatt about marauder ants. Yeah, Moffatt points out that marauder

590
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:35,560
Speaker 1: ants excel in deploying troops in ways that increase efficiency

591
00:33:35,840 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 1: and reduce the cost to a colony. And one thing

592
00:33:38,600 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: that really makes them interesting, uh, is their variety in

593
00:33:42,640 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 1: sizes among the workers. They vary in size more than

594
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 1: workers in any other ant colony. So this is where

595
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 1: it gets interesting in a sort of war game point

596
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: of view manner, because essentially we're getting into different unit

597
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:03,720
Speaker 1: types here. So if you're fielding droids, for instance, on

598
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: on on a battle, yeah, we're doing clone wars here.

599
00:34:07,720 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 1: You're not. You're not just busting out a ton of

600
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: standard B one battle droids, right, you're also busting out

601
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,239
Speaker 1: B two super heavy battle droids or heavy weapon uh

602
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:21,440
Speaker 1: droid deca, droidica um roly poly. Guys, if you're playing

603
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: something like Warhammer forty thousand, it's not just space marines.

604
00:34:24,520 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: You're also busting out specialized assault marines or heavy terminators,

605
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. And so Moffatt points out that

606
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:36,040
Speaker 1: the marauders deploy smaller miners, uh you know, that's what

607
00:34:36,080 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: we call them, or foot soldiers, to the front line,

608
00:34:38,920 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: and there these are just weak and hopeless uh individuals

609
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,399
Speaker 1: against adversaries, but there are tons of them, so they

610
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: work as a kind of barricade. They bogged down the

611
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:53,480
Speaker 1: enemy long enough for larger ants to move in the

612
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: media's and the majors. So again, same species, same essentially

613
00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:01,640
Speaker 1: um ver itty of this ant, but it's like it's

614
00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: a different cast, radically different body forms. Yeah, some of

615
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: these individuals, the majors, compared to the miners, they are

616
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:14,920
Speaker 1: five hundred times as heavy as the smaller version. So

617
00:35:15,000 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: these are real bruisers, I mean, these are these are monsters. Uh.

618
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:22,040
Speaker 1: My initial impulse would be to compare these like strictly

619
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: to larger um, you know, bruiser heavy class fighters and

620
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 1: fantasy armies, Like I'm thinking about some of the big

621
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,719
Speaker 1: specialized trolls and the armies of Mordor. But but then

622
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:35,400
Speaker 1: I was thinking about it. I was like, looking at

623
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:39,719
Speaker 1: the size deferential here, and Okay, let's assume that an orc,

624
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,760
Speaker 1: or say a stormtrooper, uh is roughly the average weight

625
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,680
Speaker 1: of a human. Okay, we're to multiply that by five

626
00:35:46,800 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: hundred you're talking thirty four tons. So in the real world,

627
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:54,960
Speaker 1: that's essentially the difference between a human and a humpback whale. Okay,

628
00:35:55,000 --> 00:35:59,280
Speaker 1: So that's crazy. Even even the troll would not really

629
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:03,080
Speaker 1: capture the size difference appropriately. Yeah, Like I ended up

630
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:04,919
Speaker 1: going down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how

631
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:10,000
Speaker 1: heavy different fantasy and sci fi army vehicles and units were.

632
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:13,840
Speaker 1: And it's best I can tell based on some fan estimates.

633
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 1: You might draw a comparison here between a single Imperial

634
00:36:17,440 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: stormtrooper and one of those two legged A T S

635
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:25,440
Speaker 1: T walkers. That would be the difference between a Marauder

636
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 1: minor ant and a Marauder major ant. This is what

637
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:33,280
Speaker 1: Mofata writes. Quote the miners sacrifices on the front. Rhymes

638
00:36:33,320 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 1: assure a low mortality for the media's and the majors,

639
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:39,919
Speaker 1: which require far more resources for the colony to raise

640
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:43,760
Speaker 1: and men maintain. Putting the easily replaced fighters at greatest

641
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: risk is a time honored battle technique. So, in other words,

642
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: stormtroopers are notoriously bad shots, and they are apparently easily replaced,

643
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:54,799
Speaker 1: But your A. T. S. T S. Those are far

644
00:36:54,840 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 1: more precious. Yeah, that will they cost more to make? Yeah.

645
00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 1: Ma Fata also points out at the marauders tactics here

646
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 1: line up with the example one season armies throughout history

647
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:11,080
Speaker 1: the use of conscripted farmers and laborers alongside elite professional soldiers,

648
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: with the common soldiers absorbing the worst of it while

649
00:37:14,160 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: the elite units are protected and move in at strategic intervals.

650
00:37:18,360 --> 00:37:20,600
Speaker 1: He also points out that marauders use what is known

651
00:37:20,600 --> 00:37:25,040
Speaker 1: in military strategy as defeat in detail tactics, defeating an

652
00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 1: enemy unit by unit, rather than engaging in enemy's full strength. Now,

653
00:37:29,640 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: marauder ants also battle their own kind, pitting colony against colony,

654
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:37,400
Speaker 1: and in these contests, the majors and the media's also

655
00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: hang back and let the miners do most of the fighting.

656
00:37:40,760 --> 00:37:43,560
Speaker 1: Tearing each other apart, and in contests that tend to

657
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:47,400
Speaker 1: be even more brutal than the interspecies conflicts that also

658
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:50,680
Speaker 1: take place. I'm gonna get to some of the logic

659
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:53,480
Speaker 1: behind the differences and strategy here in just a minute.

660
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,200
Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, because Moffatt refers to the work

661
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:00,040
Speaker 1: of University of Bristol's Nigel Franks, who found that the

662
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,440
Speaker 1: hactics of these ants in particular is consistent with Lanchester's

663
00:38:03,480 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: square law, an equation developed in World War One by

664
00:38:06,920 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: engineer Frederick Lanchester, who also devised Lanchester's linear law, which

665
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: will also touch based on here. Yeah, I keep wanting

666
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,399
Speaker 1: to say, Lanister, so don't let me say that you're

667
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:22,280
Speaker 1: coming back to the fantasy warfare analogy. So Lanchester's laws

668
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: are a set of mathematical models trying to explain outcomes

669
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: in battle based on various kinds of initial force disparity

670
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 1: is generally the main disparities are going to be individual

671
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: unit effectiveness, so like how much damage each unit can do,

672
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:43,600
Speaker 1: and then also the numbers of combatants on either side.

673
00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: Lanchester's square law in particular shows that in some types

674
00:38:48,239 --> 00:38:50,959
Speaker 1: of combat this is not all conflicts, but in some

675
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: types of combat, for example shooting wars involving masses of

676
00:38:55,440 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: soldiers armed with rifles that can aim in any direction.

677
00:38:59,320 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: In these types of combat, there are ways of organizing

678
00:39:02,760 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: confrontations majorly to your advantage, just just based on the

679
00:39:07,520 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: numbers of forces and how they're grouped specifically that the

680
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:15,400
Speaker 1: main takeaway is don't split your forces. Um So, to

681
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 1: illustrate this, you can imagine, say you've got battle droids

682
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 1: in in star wars, and say maybe one side has

683
00:39:21,440 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: a hundred battle droids and the other side has exactly

684
00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: a hundred battle droids as well. If you imagine each

685
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,640
Speaker 1: of the battle droids can shoot its blaster one time

686
00:39:30,680 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: every second, and each shot has a chance of destroying

687
00:39:34,760 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: its target, you can work out that after one second

688
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 1: of battle, both forces will be reduced equally by about

689
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:45,000
Speaker 1: maybe after another second, et cetera. And it just goes

690
00:39:45,040 --> 00:39:48,400
Speaker 1: on as the two sides decreased by attrition at roughly

691
00:39:48,480 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 1: the same rate, until both armies are mostly are fully

692
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: vanquished at around the same time, unless for some reason

693
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 1: one side gets an advantage early on. But that kind

694
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:02,520
Speaker 1: of process does not scale in a linear way. So

695
00:40:02,560 --> 00:40:05,920
Speaker 1: if you have say a hundred droids versus an opponents

696
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,440
Speaker 1: at general grievous is your opposing army and he's just

697
00:40:08,480 --> 00:40:12,120
Speaker 1: got fifty droids you you probably can assume that the

698
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: larger force will win, but you might not understand how

699
00:40:16,200 --> 00:40:19,680
Speaker 1: much of an advantage the larger force has. So if

700
00:40:19,719 --> 00:40:22,000
Speaker 1: if you have you know, the same kind of thing working.

701
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:25,319
Speaker 1: After the first second, your hundred droids will probably have

702
00:40:25,400 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: destroyed roughly half of your opponents fifty droids, but they

703
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,000
Speaker 1: really will not have destroyed many of yours at all,

704
00:40:32,080 --> 00:40:35,880
Speaker 1: maybe only like twelve or so. And as each second

705
00:40:35,920 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: of battle goes on, you reduce their fighting effectiveness more

706
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 1: and more, until what you're left with in the end

707
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:47,840
Speaker 1: is very little casualties to the larger army and total

708
00:40:47,920 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 1: decimation of the smaller one. And so this shows, for example,

709
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 1: that if you have a force of a hundred battle droids,

710
00:40:53,640 --> 00:40:56,600
Speaker 1: it would be much easier for that those one hundred

711
00:40:56,640 --> 00:41:00,840
Speaker 1: battle droids to win two consecutive battles against fifty battle

712
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: droids than to win one single battle against a force

713
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 1: of one hundred. And this is exactly why divide and

714
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:11,319
Speaker 1: conquer is such an important principle of warfare. If you

715
00:41:11,440 --> 00:41:14,960
Speaker 1: break your enemy up into smaller groupings. With these certain

716
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: types of combat, your advantage over them does not increase linearly.

717
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: It multiplies by the square. In fact, if you choose

718
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: your battles wisely, you can even use this to allow

719
00:41:26,120 --> 00:41:28,839
Speaker 1: a smaller force to beat a bigger one. So if

720
00:41:28,840 --> 00:41:31,760
Speaker 1: you've got a hundred battle droids, General Graves has two hundred,

721
00:41:32,400 --> 00:41:35,759
Speaker 1: you could still potentially beat him overall by keeping your

722
00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: forces together and peeling off small segments of like ten

723
00:41:39,440 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 1: or twenty at a time to face sequentially, with negligible

724
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 1: losses to your own forces each time. So this is

725
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 1: again where we come back to defeat in detail exactly right. So,

726
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: in mathematical terms, what Lanchester predicted was that in these

727
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 1: certain types of scenarios, uh, the strength of a group

728
00:41:57,719 --> 00:42:00,520
Speaker 1: on the battlefield is the product of two things. The

729
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 1: effectiveness of each fighting unit not times the number of units,

730
00:42:05,280 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 1: but times the square of the number of units. And

731
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: that's why it's known as the square law. And it

732
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:15,000
Speaker 1: tells you that for certain types of combat, sheer numbers

733
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 1: can easily overwhelm differences in the effectiveness of individual fighting units.

734
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 1: And it's interesting how this tends to go against what

735
00:42:24,600 --> 00:42:30,840
Speaker 1: seems to be people's desire to understand, like dramatic violent

736
00:42:30,880 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 1: conflict in narratives like in you know, epic poetry and

737
00:42:34,040 --> 00:42:37,120
Speaker 1: action movies and all that, where it seems like what people,

738
00:42:37,400 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: or at least what authors think people want to see, uh,

739
00:42:40,880 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 1: is the idea that a single highly effective combatant you know,

740
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: your John Wick or whoever, can overcome many less effective

741
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:52,680
Speaker 1: enemies ganging up on them. And for many types of combat,

742
00:42:52,840 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: this is not how real fighting actually works. Numbers are

743
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:59,640
Speaker 1: significantly more important than skills, Like better to have five

744
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:06,319
Speaker 1: off brand discount battle droids than fifty elite i G units. Yeah, yeah,

745
00:43:06,320 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: it it certainly does run run counter to our our

746
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,319
Speaker 1: our epic storytelling. Yeah, where it's like a one rag

747
00:43:12,400 --> 00:43:15,799
Speaker 1: tag group of talented individuals can can can turn the

748
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 1: tide of battle against against the faceless lord. Yeah yeah.

749
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,319
Speaker 1: And we should know again that the square law is

750
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: not supposed to apply to all types of combat. For example,

751
00:43:26,320 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: in situations where combatants have to face one another in

752
00:43:29,640 --> 00:43:33,080
Speaker 1: one on one duels, one at a time, they're the

753
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,680
Speaker 1: advantages of superior numbers are reduced to something closer to

754
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:40,920
Speaker 1: a pure linear function, and the individual effectiveness of of

755
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:43,840
Speaker 1: each unit becomes a lot more relevant. And so the

756
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:45,880
Speaker 1: way this works out in the real world is that,

757
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:49,960
Speaker 1: like in situations where your forces do not have numerical superiority,

758
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: military leaders who are conscious of these issues will try

759
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:58,440
Speaker 1: to engineer battle conditions to avoid square law scenarios and

760
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:02,000
Speaker 1: enforced linear laws in areas instead. One example would be

761
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:06,800
Speaker 1: like using natural terrain or fortifications to create choke points

762
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 1: where the majority of the enemy forces are held back

763
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:14,040
Speaker 1: from the action. That can't all fight you at once.

764
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:16,200
Speaker 1: The number of them that can fight you at the

765
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:19,760
Speaker 1: same time is limited by topography, and thus the battle

766
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:23,360
Speaker 1: becomes it starts to resemble something more like a series

767
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:26,759
Speaker 1: of sequential duels instead of a simultaneous war of all

768
00:44:26,800 --> 00:44:29,840
Speaker 1: against all. And of course examples of this in history

769
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:31,520
Speaker 1: or you know the way the thing about the way

770
00:44:31,520 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: castles are constructed, narrow passageways, uh, you know, natural ravines, bridges, gates,

771
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,200
Speaker 1: a spiral staircase in the castle tower. These tend to

772
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:44,399
Speaker 1: reduce the salience of the square law advantage and help

773
00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: you out, especially if you've got a smaller number of

774
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:50,400
Speaker 1: more effective fighters. So, to bring this back to ants,

775
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 1: the question here is which of these models is better

776
00:44:53,520 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: at predicting the outcomes of ant wars. Is it the

777
00:44:56,080 --> 00:45:00,400
Speaker 1: linear model where there's this direct linear relationship between size

778
00:45:00,400 --> 00:45:02,320
Speaker 1: of forces in the outcome, or is it the square

779
00:45:02,320 --> 00:45:06,360
Speaker 1: model where the larger numbers of concentrated forces just easily

780
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:11,879
Speaker 1: overwhelm other concerns like the like individual fighting unit effectiveness. Uh.

781
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: There was a paper that was published in the nineteen

782
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:17,520
Speaker 1: nineties and the journal Animal Behavior. This was in nine

783
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: by Mary E. A. White House and Klaus Jaffa called

784
00:45:22,920 --> 00:45:26,520
Speaker 1: ant wars combat strategies territory and nest defense in the

785
00:45:26,600 --> 00:45:30,880
Speaker 1: leaf cutting ant Atta leave Agatta And according to their research,

786
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: they found quote the leaf cutting ant atta leave Agatta

787
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: responded to a simulated vertebrate threat by recruiting many soldiers,

788
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:42,600
Speaker 1: and the soldiers would be a special special fighters large workers,

789
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:47,600
Speaker 1: but responded to con specific and interspecific ant threats by

790
00:45:47,640 --> 00:45:52,120
Speaker 1: recruiting mainly small ants. So the vertebrate attack here was

791
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: simulated pretty much by poking a stick. And you know,

792
00:45:55,200 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 1: as they poke a stick into the entrance of the

793
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: colony nest and then shake it for twenty seconds. And

794
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:03,520
Speaker 1: this was meant to mimic the mechanical disturbance that would

795
00:46:03,560 --> 00:46:06,160
Speaker 1: be caused by an ants by the ant's main predator,

796
00:46:06,280 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 1: the armadillo. In these attacks, what the ants would tend

797
00:46:09,719 --> 00:46:12,040
Speaker 1: to do is they would bring more of their elite

798
00:46:12,120 --> 00:46:15,759
Speaker 1: fighters to defend the nest. So in this situation it

799
00:46:15,800 --> 00:46:20,480
Speaker 1: appears evolution maybe favoring the linear reasoning in this case. Meanwhile,

800
00:46:20,560 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: when the ants are attacked by other ants, they tended

801
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 1: to respond instead with overwhelming numbers of less dedicated fighters.

802
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 1: So a threat from arrival ant colony seems to have

803
00:46:32,000 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: been solved by natural selection to select for behaviors motivated

804
00:46:35,560 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 1: by the square law. Along these lines, Mofat also points

805
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: out the quote a fighter's value to its colony bears

806
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:47,319
Speaker 1: on the risks the ant takes. The more expendable she is,

807
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,120
Speaker 1: the more likely she is to end up in harm's way.

808
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:54,560
Speaker 1: As such, marauder ants, he writes, they guard their foraging

809
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 1: trails with old and or maimed workers, and in fire ants,

810
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 1: it's been observed the old stay and fight, while the

811
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 1: very young runaway and en fireman's more in their prime

812
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 1: will actually uh fake their own deaths. Wow, we'll fake

813
00:47:09,480 --> 00:47:12,600
Speaker 1: their own deaths. I mean. This is again something that

814
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: makes more sense if you think about the ant Colony

815
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,200
Speaker 1: as a single super organism. It's like it's it's putting

816
00:47:18,239 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 1: the the already damaged or less effective parts of itself

817
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:26,120
Speaker 1: out in front to absorb the brunt of the of

818
00:47:26,200 --> 00:47:29,440
Speaker 1: the violence. Yeah, alright, So at this point you're you're

819
00:47:29,560 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, they're out of time,

820
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 1: and you you would be right, just as the ant

821
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:37,760
Speaker 1: War is heating up. Uh, we're gonna have to close

822
00:47:37,760 --> 00:47:40,320
Speaker 1: out this episode, but fear not, we're gonna be back

823
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 1: with a third ant War episode that will more or

824
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,879
Speaker 1: less round everything out. Though a word of warning, if

825
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:49,640
Speaker 1: I am, if I'm looking at the schedule correctly, there

826
00:47:49,680 --> 00:47:53,840
Speaker 1: will be another episode that will publish before the third

827
00:47:53,840 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 1: ant War episode publishes, So just bear with us. The

828
00:47:57,600 --> 00:48:00,840
Speaker 1: third ant War installment is on its way in the meantime.

829
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:02,520
Speaker 1: If you like to check out other episodes of Stuff

830
00:48:02,520 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind, you can find us anywhere you

831
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:07,239
Speaker 1: get your podcast and wherever that happens to be. Just

832
00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 1: make sure you rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks as

833
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:14,040
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

834
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:15,400
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

835
00:48:15,480 --> 00:48:17,759
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other to suggest a

836
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello. You

837
00:48:19,880 --> 00:48:22,880
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

838
00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:33,280
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

839
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,

840
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:39,000
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

841
00:48:39,040 --> 00:48:49,200
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.