WEBVTT - From the Vault: Ant Wars, Episode 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.680 Hey, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My name 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.880 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.680 bringing you an episode from the Vault. This is aunt 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:19.239 War's Part two, originally aired June. Let's let the aunt 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:24.320 Wars continue. Deliver thyself as a row from the hand 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.200 of the hunter, and as a bird from the hand 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:31.400 of the fowler. Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:35.760 her ways and be wise, which, having no guide, overseer, 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:39.760 or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:46.680 her food in the harvest. Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:46.720 --> 0:00:56.240 your mind. Production of My Heart Radio. Hey you, welcome 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:58.320 to stuff to blow your mind. My name is Robert 0:00:58.400 --> 0:01:00.800 Lamb and I'm Joe mccorre mick. And that was a 0:01:00.840 --> 0:01:03.800 reading from the King James translation of the Bible. It's 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:07.520 from the Book of Proverbs, chapter six. Uh. And I 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:09.679 was looking right before we started. I was like, oh, 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.360 let me check my Scholarly Oxford annotated addition to the 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:16.240 Bible to see if it's got any insights on how 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:19.560 the author of this passage knew that all of the 0:01:19.600 --> 0:01:22.440 worker ants in the colony were female and no it 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:27.520 just says this passage appeals to the natural world. I 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:32.039 love that. Yeah, because I had questions about this one. 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.000 I was not familiar with this passage. We just kind 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.640 of we're looking for for fun things to read at 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.040 the at the top of our our second Ant War episode, 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:42.480 and I was like, Oh, I wonder what the what 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.440 what the old King James version had to say about ants? 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:49.279 And here we are a verse that at once seems 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:53.120 to to get the gender of the vast majority of 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.640 an Ant colony correct and also doesn't get hung up 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.560 on the idea of a central ruler like in In 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:03.920 a couple of ways, this is a very um accurate 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.400 reading of Ant civilization. You know, I didn't even think 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:10.320 about it, but I'm sure that means this is one 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:13.679 of those verses that's been employed by a Christian apologists 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.239 to suggest the inherancy of the Bible, right because it 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.160 But but I gotta say this versus is pretty dead 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:22.720 on right. Uh. There is no guide overseer or ruler. 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:25.960 It's just the swarm intelligence that emerges from the ants 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.359 evolved instinct. And uh. And it's true the Ants are 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:31.880 not lazy, like I think that's the point of the passage. 0:02:31.919 --> 0:02:35.240 It's like, look, the ant doesn't wait around try, you know, 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:37.640 wait around to be told what to do. It just 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:40.480 knows what to do and does it right. And of 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.160 course then there's this bit about the gathering of food 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.680 and the storing of food, which, depending on which species 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.480 you're looking at, is also really accurate. Of course, as 0:02:49.480 --> 0:02:52.919 we continue to look at examples of of ant civilization 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:55.720 and ant warfare, we're gonna get into some examples that 0:02:56.280 --> 0:03:00.240 they are a bit more barbaric and uh ravageing. I 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.480 guess yeah, for a biblical parallels, some of these aunt 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:06.079 stories are going to be closer to the conquest of 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:10.000 Canaan than the Wisdom of Proverbs. But this is funny 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.840 because it also brings up the idea of you know, 0:03:12.880 --> 0:03:15.800 in the last episode we were talking about obviously ancient 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:18.840 people had been looking at ants and trying to understand 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:22.240 their behavior long before there was a unified scientific study. 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.760 You know, a field known as entomology and the comparison 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:29.240 to military forces and armies has been there since ancient times. 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:32.320 But I think this is definitely not the only case 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:36.480 where people read spiritual significance into ant behavior. No, yeah, 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:38.880 I was I was reading about this, and ants have 0:03:38.920 --> 0:03:41.480 a sacred role in a number of different religions. In 0:03:41.560 --> 0:03:44.880 some African traditions, they are considered messengers of the gods. 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:50.040 And throughout India you'll find various customs that involve protecting 0:03:50.240 --> 0:03:55.200 antlines and ant hills, even uh, leaving out food for 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:59.880 the ant hills or decorating them in some slight fashion, 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:02.680 like you know, the sprinkling of of you know, some 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.680 sort of colored or that sort of thing, and and 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:09.480 likewise it's considered heinous to disturb an ant hill. Especially. 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:12.880 I was reading about all this in a book titled 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.280 The Sacred Animals of India by Nandita Krishna, which is 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.920 an excellent little book from Penguin Press. You can pick 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:22.279 it up like most most places. I think I picked 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:24.120 it up at a yoga studio once while I was 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:26.960 waiting and waiting for my wife to get her shoes on, 0:04:27.000 --> 0:04:28.800 and I'm like, oh, what's this a book about animals. 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:31.960 I started leaving through it, and it's just animal by animal, uh, 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:35.479 you know, some some some fascinating facts about how it 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.720 ties into Hindu traditions. But then also sometimes there's a 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.520 little science as well, so like there's a bit about 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.800 the ant and they also touch on some of the 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:46.560 basic facts about ants and their role in ecology that 0:04:46.600 --> 0:04:49.760 we've been discussing here. But in this book the author 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.159 describes a couple of cool details. First of all, a 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.800 tale in which in Indra desires a glorious palace. So 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:00.599 Vishnu comes to him and points out a line of 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.560 ants in the dirt and tells him that each and 0:05:03.600 --> 0:05:06.479 every one of them is an Indra that rose to 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:09.679 the highest level of existence and then fell down again 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.159 via pride. So there's a you know, this recurring idea 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.800 that ants, like all these other animals, are part of 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:20.760 the cycle of rebirth. The author also mentions that Valmiki, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:24.080 the author of the Ramayana, emerged from an ant hill 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:28.600 or a Valmika after ten years of meditation. So in 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.719 this case, the the author um of the Hindu epic 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:34.320 ends up taking on the name of the ant hill 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.200 as part of their new emerged identity. That's interesting and 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.960 counterintuitive because it imagines the ant hill as a place 0:05:42.000 --> 0:05:46.160 that would be appropriate for meditation, solitude, you know, like 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:49.640 quiet contemplation, Whereas when I think of an ant hill, 0:05:49.640 --> 0:05:51.719 I would think of the exact opposite something that is 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.160 certainly organized from from the ant's own genetic point of view, 0:05:56.240 --> 0:05:59.640 but us looking down at it, it's so chaotic and frenzied, 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.440 it seemed like it would be impossible to focus. Yeah, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.120 but then I guess you could also look at it 0:06:04.160 --> 0:06:07.240 as a place of just pure order or to really 0:06:07.240 --> 0:06:09.080 get into I guess some more of a you know, 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:13.479 a topic that's important in Hindu epics, a place of 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.920 pure duty, Like there's just there's you know, absolute duty 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:21.160 uh youth, social duty to the colony, and there's no 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.680 there's no room for aunt despair or aunt ambition. You know, 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:28.279 you're not going to be pulled in either of those directions. 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:31.320 It's just pure absolute duty. So really it's it's an 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:35.240 ideal place to fall um if you you know, you 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.240 achieve some demigotic state of pride and UH and then 0:06:39.360 --> 0:06:41.239 have to you know, fall back down to a lower 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.120 life form and then work your way back up. And 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:45.360 it's a good place to start. Kind of a form 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:49.320 of contrapostito, right, like the idea that the divine punishment 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:52.880 or not necessarily punishment either, but the the divine justice 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.719 somehow fits the UH fits the original offense that brought 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.720 it on. Yeah, So if you're joining us in this 0:07:00.120 --> 0:07:02.800 so do you've probably figured out that we're talking about 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:06.600 ants and uh. And this is indeed the second in 0:07:06.680 --> 0:07:10.680 our aunt wars Um series. So if you didn't listen 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.160 to the last episode, we would recommend you go back 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.320 and give it a listen. We discussed the empire, the ants, 0:07:17.400 --> 0:07:20.680 and and very broadly the endless wars that formed the 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.040 boundaries of their individual kingdoms. I want to go back 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:26.720 again to the writings of Mark W. Moffatt Uh and 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.080 this is from that Scientific American article that I previously 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.400 mentioned that's also hosted on his website at dr bugs 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:40.320 dot com. He writes, quote, in Ghana, I witness deceiving 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:44.440 carpet of workers of the army ants species Dori lists 0:07:44.520 --> 0:07:49.280 Nigricans searching together across an area hundred feet wide. These 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:53.320 African army ants, which in species such as D niger 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.680 Kans that move and broad swaths, are called driver ants, 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.960 slice the flesh off their enemy or quarry with blade 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:03.720 like jaws and can make short work of victims thousands 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:08.120 of times their size, Although vertebrate creatures can usually outrun ants. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:11.800 In Gabon, I once saw an antelope caught in a snare, 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:15.920 eaten alive by a colony of driver ants. That highlights 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.240 something that I was planning on talking about in just 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:21.000 a little bit when we get to one particular species 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:23.800 of army and that I was finding really fascinating. But uh, 0:08:24.120 --> 0:08:26.520 but I guess we can address it now. So, you know, 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.240 the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull vision, which goes back 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.120 to earlier movies and stuff where the the army ants 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:36.360 essentially are terrestrial movie piranha. You know, you've got the 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.040 You've got the Hollywood acid that that strips the human 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:41.880 to the bone in in seconds. You've got the Hollywood 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.360 piranha that stripped the human to the bone in seconds. 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.160 I don't know if either of those are really very 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:49.080 accurately reflective of stuff that happens in the real world. 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:51.920 And then the answer the next thing, the Hollywood army 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:56.480 ants that just sterilize your skeleton. Uh, that that doesn't 0:08:56.559 --> 0:08:59.880 seem to be something that happens in reality. Certainly not. 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.040 I would say, with a with a large animal that 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.800 can move, a lot of army ants are are going 0:09:05.840 --> 0:09:10.360 to be absolutely apocalyptic in their implications for smaller animals, 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.480 for insects, arachnids, centipedes, and even small vertebrates like little 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:18.280 frogs and snakes and stuff. But larger animals they don't 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.560 actually represent a threat like that, Like you can easily 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:23.800 get away from them. The only case I would imagine 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.120 where army ants might represent a real threat to larger 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.840 animals would be if you are totally immobilized, right, so 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:33.400 if you're caught in a snare, buried up to your 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.400 neck in the sand, that sort of thing. Right, And 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.160 even then I don't know if they would necessarily kill you, 0:09:38.200 --> 0:09:41.160 because they're they're looking for their their main prey species, 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.920 which are going to be all kinds of invertebrates. Yeah, 0:09:43.960 --> 0:09:47.680 they're probably going after something like termites or other ants. Uh, 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:51.840 heads sticking out of the ground not really on the 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:54.520 menu usually, But but I wouldn't want to try it. 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:57.280 I'm not saying necessarily safe. That could be the next 0:09:57.320 --> 0:10:01.600 big Hollywood magician act though, right, David Blame, I mean, 0:10:01.600 --> 0:10:03.920 I'd be surprised if he hasn't done it already. Well, no, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.040 it's the next big confidence game, you know. So they 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.240 got to walk across the hot coals. That's like the 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.959 confidence building exercise. But the next stage is the bury 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:14.920 yourself up to the neck and let the army ants 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:18.480 come now. Well, another a little piece of health cleaning 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:20.280 from the last episode I want to throw in here. 0:10:20.679 --> 0:10:23.760 In the last episode, I briefly mentioned pheromones as being 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:26.960 essential to aunt communication. And I don't want to gloss 0:10:27.000 --> 0:10:29.880 over this too much because I imagine many of you 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:34.480 have have seen videos of pheromonal demonstrations, uh, you know, 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:37.760 the the the ant Overlord. EO. Wilson himself does this 0:10:37.840 --> 0:10:40.840 at times, in which a pheromone is painted like a 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:44.280 paintbrush or a Q tip or something across the surface 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.560 and then ants follow it and is informative as as 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.160 a demonstration like this can be, don't take it to 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.040 mean that there's just there's a real blunt simplicity to it. 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.080 As as Wilson himself stresses, there is a pheromonal language 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:00.040 for ants. Uh. Any given ant species us as a 0:11:00.040 --> 0:11:04.760 whole palette of pheromones and chemical signals to communicate. Yeah, 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.960 it can be very complex, though there are also very 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.480 simple ways to see it in action and like creating 0:11:10.520 --> 0:11:14.160 the pheromone trails that are like. EO. Wilson was involved 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.640 in research that discovered one of the main glands in 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:20.960 the ants gaster that deposits the pheromone that creates the 0:11:20.960 --> 0:11:24.040 trail leading to food. And generally if you deposit this 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.440 pheromone as you will see, you know, humans can extract 0:11:26.520 --> 0:11:28.040 it and put it in the bottle like you're saying. 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.080 To these demonstrations where you just put a line of 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.079 it down on a table and suddenly the ants form 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:37.400 up and follow the line, those can be striking direct demonstrations, 0:11:37.400 --> 0:11:40.200 even though the full web of pheromonal interactions can be 0:11:40.280 --> 0:11:43.240 much more complex, and you can also is easily do 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:46.959 this yourself, even without um the extraction of that kind 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:50.520 of pheromone simply by if you've ever tried dragging your 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.640 finger across an ant trail, where like you know, if 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.840 you can smudge the chemicals away and maybe disrupt it 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.559 with some of the oils from your own finger, suddenly 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.560 the movement of the ants becomes chaotic, gets all confused 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.480 because the deposition of chemicals that has created this trail 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:11.439 has been broken. I've been I've been noticing these antrei 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.240 an trails a lot more on my walks recently. Uh, 0:12:14.360 --> 0:12:16.520 my family and I will go out to some various 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:19.680 nature walking by trails in the area that they're not 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:23.000 that populated, and some of them haply you know, slabs 0:12:23.040 --> 0:12:26.319 of concrete, and they'll be these little, essentially a little 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:29.720 trenches that stretch across them where one slab meets the other. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.680 And invariably those are the trenches through which the ants moved, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:36.600 not over the top where they're going to potentially get 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.800 smashed by a by bicycle tires are stepped on more easily. No, 0:12:40.960 --> 0:12:44.120 they're in the trenches, moving across from one side to 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.520 the other. It almost makes me wonder if we've unintentionally 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:51.520 created little bridges or tunnels for the ants, the same 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:53.960 way that on Christmas Island they have to create these 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:57.520 crab bridges and tunnels for crabs to let their migration 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:00.320 get across the roads. Yeah, it does seem like that, 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:06.160 like accidental um pro ant design. Uh. Now, speaking of 0:13:06.200 --> 0:13:08.640 E O. Wilson, I want to point out to everybody 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:10.840 we talked about EO. Wilson on the show before Anio. 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:13.800 Wilson has of course authored a number of books, uh, 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:16.760 many of which are are ideal for a general audience. 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.160 But if you want to watch a documentary about him, 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.679 there is a wonderful PBS documentary that came out several 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:26.240 years ago titled EO. Wilson of Ants and Men. You 0:13:26.280 --> 0:13:29.360 can probably get it wherever you stream PBS content. I 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.000 know that at least in the United States you can 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.440 get it on Prime. Uh. It's really good. Yeah, it's so. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:36.680 I started watching it. I haven't finished yet. I watched 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:39.000 the first half and it's just a delight. There's a 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:42.000 great moment where so EO. Wilson, you know, one of 0:13:42.040 --> 0:13:45.840 the world authorities on ants, revolutionary biologist for the world 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:49.240 of youth social insects, and he says at one point, 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:51.760 he says, the question people want to know the answer 0:13:51.800 --> 0:13:54.640 to most often about ants is what do I do 0:13:54.720 --> 0:13:58.360 about the ones in my kitchen? And then he says, uh, 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:01.200 and here's what I tell them. You get a little 0:14:01.240 --> 0:14:04.120 piece of a cookie and you put it down near 0:14:04.160 --> 0:14:10.320 the ants, and then you watch what they do. I 0:14:10.400 --> 0:14:12.480 love that answer because, on one hand, it feels like 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:14.839 maybe he's trying to teach us something like, Oh, he's 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:16.800 trying to teach me a lesson about why the answer 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:18.960 there to begin with, you know, I need to watch 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:20.600 I need to make sure my kitchen is clean. I 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:22.680 mean to make sure there's no there's no food product, 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:24.880 or I need to think about why they've invaded my kitchen. 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.320 But on the other hand, it seems just as likely 0:14:27.360 --> 0:14:29.520 that he's saying, you're not going to do anything about 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.280 these ants. You're going to enjoy them. You're going to 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:34.720 you're going to feed them and watch how they work. 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:40.160 There there's a beautiful stoicism and enjoy in the way 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:43.800 that he observes ants even as they are, you know, 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:46.840 doing things that most people would regard as an offense 0:14:46.920 --> 0:14:49.360 or an irritation. You know, we talked several times now 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.160 about like the scene where he's just letting all the 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.400 fire ants sting his hand and he's watching it with 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.520 with such fascination and talking about what's going on is 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.000 they're all attacking his skin at the same time. And 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:06.000 uh and then yeah, and this is basically the same attitude, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:08.320 but with the kitchen instead of your hand. It's like, no, 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.560 don't get upset, just take pleasure in watching nature work. 0:15:13.960 --> 0:15:15.880 Oh and by the way, Wilson has a new book 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:19.120 on ants coming out this fall. I noticed, called Tales 0:15:19.160 --> 0:15:22.000 from the Ant World. Alright, on that note, we're gonna 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:24.600 take one quick break but we'll be right back, and 0:15:24.640 --> 0:15:27.560 we'll return to the world of the ants and the 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:34.520 wars that they rage. Thank alright, we're back. One of 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:37.280 the other sources that I was using in reading about 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:40.960 ants for these episodes is the excellent book Animal Weapons 0:15:41.000 --> 0:15:45.000 by Douglas J. Mlin, And in it the author has 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.600 has a whole bit where he's describing basically, the whole 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.160 book has to do with with bioweapons and the evolution 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.760 of bioweapons and organisms and then comparing them to human warfare. 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:57.680 But there's a whole bit where he's talking about the 0:15:57.760 --> 0:16:01.600 quote giant jaws and thick distinct heads of the army 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:05.000 ants that allow them in mass to topple so many opponents, 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:07.960 and he shares a fun bit of experience that really 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:11.680 underlies just how you know, powerful the design is on 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:16.720 these little guys, uh, little gals rather um. Basically, he 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.000 was an outdoing field of some field experiments in Belize, 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:23.400 and he accidentally sliced his thumb with a machete, and 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:26.160 without anything else to stitch up the wound, this is 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:27.720 what they did. First of all, they did have some 0:16:27.840 --> 0:16:30.640 rum on them, so they stailized the wound with rum. 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:35.120 But then they suitured the wound with ants. They simply 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:38.960 placed the ants live ants allow along the line of 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:42.000 the cut while someone held the cut together and allowed 0:16:42.040 --> 0:16:45.360 their little jaws to snap into place. And then they 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.160 tore the body away from the head and the heads 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.960 of which they only required five or six, kept their 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:55.160 jaws latch tight and this held the wound together and 0:16:55.200 --> 0:16:58.320 allowed them to eventually get proper medical attention for the cut. 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:02.000 I would say, uh, if I just heard this story 0:17:02.040 --> 0:17:04.879 in isolation, I would be inclined to doubt it. It 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.480 seems so hard to believe. But I mean, obviously I 0:17:07.680 --> 0:17:12.760 don't think England's lying about this. But that's just that's amazing. Yeah, 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.879 it's I mean, this is it's also a great illustration 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:20.240 of like of a scientist, you know, thinking about about 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.840 how to solve a problem. I would never have thought, oh, 0:17:22.920 --> 0:17:24.720 i'm cut, I really need to let's get some ants 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.240 attached to this wound. But but it's it's also just 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.280 a wonderful um uh, you know the description of just 0:17:30.359 --> 0:17:35.000 how powerful these little jaws are. Now army and marauder 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:39.199 ants wage their war for food uh and resources. They 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:42.320 will battle other forces for control of food resources and 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:45.520 will also invade other ants societies in order to claim 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:49.800 their larva and their pupa as food. Yeah, and these 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.000 are some of the most striking types of ants that 0:17:52.040 --> 0:17:54.280 we see. I mean, you know, we're familiar with aunt 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:57.760 warfare that we've discussed before, say between h different types 0:17:57.800 --> 0:18:00.560 of fire ants, even here in the in the Southern 0:18:00.720 --> 0:18:03.760 United States. But seeing ants that forage on the scale 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:06.639 and with the tenacity of army ants or marauder ants, 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.439 is is a different kind of thing. This might be 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.520 a good place to pause and appreciate the marvel of 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.040 this one species of army ant that I've been reading 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:17.600 into a lot. Uh. And this is the species known 0:18:17.640 --> 0:18:20.639 as eston Bercelli. I Uh. There are there are a 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.200 lot of actually different species of ant that are commonly 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:26.879 referred to as army ants, but seton Bricelli i is 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:29.560 I think the one species that people are most often 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:33.120 talking about with that general title. They're very charismatic, well 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:36.920 observed and distributed species. They live in the humid equatorial 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:41.040 regions of Central and South America, especially in the Amazon rainforest, 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:44.640 but with the range extending up through Mexico and down 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:48.800 south of Brazil into Argentina. Uh. But they're primarily in 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:54.080 the equatorial rainforest, and these ants will form colonies of 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:58.840 several hundred thousand adults at a time. With this rapacious 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.040 foraging behavior, you're satisfying the energy needs of the colony 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:07.639 with raids that cover hundreds of meters. According to one estimate, 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.960 I believe this was cited by Carl and Marion rhetton Meyer, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.800 who I'll mention again in a moment. They're aunt experts. 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.240 But the figure is that on average, each colony of 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:21.520 Seton Bricelli I kills and eats about thirty thousand small 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:29.520 animals every day, wow, thirty every single day. Uh. And 0:19:29.600 --> 0:19:33.560 so they have this carnivorous diet, this enormous carnivorous diet 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:38.040 that is especially important because they're trying to supply the 0:19:38.160 --> 0:19:42.520 developing larvae of their colony with a high fat diet 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.159 that the larvae need in order to grow, so that 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:48.639 the babies need animal fat and the adults go out rating. 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:52.720 So there's another really interesting thing about this species to me, 0:19:53.320 --> 0:19:57.359 which is that they do not make permanent nests. Seton 0:19:57.440 --> 0:20:01.920 Bricelli I do not make permanent nests. We often think 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.080 of ant colonies as defined by their nests right the 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.679 ant hills. Ants are environmental engineers, but due to the 0:20:08.800 --> 0:20:12.160 energy needs of this species, they can't be tied down 0:20:12.240 --> 0:20:15.679 to one place for too long. Imagine them trying to 0:20:15.800 --> 0:20:18.800 form a permanent nest while their larvae are growing, and 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:22.000 they have these huge requirements for animal fat, you know, 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.919 other insects to bring in and all that. Within a 0:20:25.000 --> 0:20:27.840 day or two they probably would have cleared out all 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:30.639 of the food sources within I don't know, maybe a 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:34.160 few hundred square meters of wherever they are. So instead, 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.760 Esset and Bricelli I builds a mobile fortress known as 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:42.840 a bivouac. This is a moving fortress that protects the 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:46.639 queen and the developing larvae. But the fortress is made 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:49.879 not out of structures or materials from the environment. It 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:54.679 is made out of ants. Do you see Do you understand? 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:58.119 It is a war rig for ants, made out of 0:20:58.160 --> 0:21:02.600 the interlocked bodies of living ants, like a cage of 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:07.480 millions of legs, antennae, and mandibles. I want to quote 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.520 from Peter Tyson, writing for Nova in an article about 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:14.480 these things. Quote this elliptical mass talking about the bivouac. 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.600 This elliptical mass maybe three feet across and hold up 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.000 to seven hundred thousand ants. When they need to move 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.640 to a new site, where they bivouac on the surface 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:28.679 rather than build a nest. Eber Chellii workers go first 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:33.240 ferrying food and larvae. Only after nightfall does the queen follow, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.320 escorted by a mass of soldier ants that completely surround 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:40.520 her and will defend her with their lives. So the 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:44.560 bivouac again, is this moving fortress. The queen is inside 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:49.199 and the cage cannot be breached. Uh. This this was 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.600 just so captivating to me. And so if you're looking 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:54.880 for these things in the forest, the bivouac can sometimes 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.520 be found inside a hollow log or just on the 0:21:57.560 --> 0:22:01.120 forest floor, but also sometimes it can be found hanging 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:05.440 suspended from tree limbs. So imagine that like a dangling 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:09.000 fortress for ants made out of ants, and it falls 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:12.280 in line with a more general tendency of some ant species, 0:22:12.320 --> 0:22:17.200 including this one, toward body based engineering projects. These army 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.119 ants are also known to say assist the mobility of 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.560 their forces by filling in potholes along the foraging route 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.119 with plugs made out of live ants. So you just 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:30.800 smooth over, smooth over the surface with ants, or also 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:34.600 for building bridges out of themselves to allow the rest 0:22:34.600 --> 0:22:38.440 of the army to cross gaps. And apparently these big 0:22:38.480 --> 0:22:43.520 wax also emit an other worldly stinch, this amazing smell 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.160 that allows you to locate them by smell alone within 0:22:46.200 --> 0:22:49.000 the rainforest. I would love to know what this smells like. 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:52.040 You know, all of this is a wonderful example two 0:22:52.240 --> 0:22:58.240 of the super organism aspects of ants. How with other creatures, 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:01.199 we we we we talk about the individual, you know, 0:23:01.640 --> 0:23:05.120 and in terms of understanding the species. But but with ants, 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:07.560 you look at behaviors like this, and you see there's 0:23:07.640 --> 0:23:14.320 such cohesion, there's there's there's such you social um perfection 0:23:14.920 --> 0:23:17.760 that you can't look at an individual aunt to understand, 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:21.280 and you have to look at what the colony itself 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:23.600 is doing. But there's another thing I was thinking about 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.760 with this model of ant life, the fact that these 0:23:26.800 --> 0:23:31.199 ants create no permanent nests. It sort of reminds me 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:34.639 of the idea of the strategic advantage of offense. You know, 0:23:34.720 --> 0:23:38.040 the old saying that the best defense is a good offense. 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:42.159 This is actually considered true in some cases in military theory, 0:23:42.280 --> 0:23:45.840 because the reasoning goes that when you're on the attack, 0:23:46.080 --> 0:23:49.520 you have freedom. Basically, you like, as you're on the attack, 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.879 you are creating options for yourself, versus when you're defending, 0:23:54.520 --> 0:23:58.000 you have constraints, you have limited options. This is often 0:23:58.040 --> 0:24:00.800 true just for example in chess. Uh. You know the 0:24:00.920 --> 0:24:03.719 chess players talk about the initiative that you gain when 0:24:03.800 --> 0:24:08.600 you're on the attack. You're constantly limiting the options for 0:24:08.680 --> 0:24:11.920 your opponents next move if they have to defend their 0:24:11.920 --> 0:24:15.720 pieces against an attack that you just set up. And 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:18.520 this is obviously true across multiple context It's known as 0:24:18.560 --> 0:24:23.200 maintaining the initiative. Now, obviously there are there are many uh, 0:24:23.400 --> 0:24:26.000 there are many advantages you can get from having a 0:24:26.040 --> 0:24:29.160 defensive structure like a nest that's buried down in the ground. 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:31.760 You know, the queen is very well protected, but that 0:24:31.880 --> 0:24:34.520 also limits your options, right and and this is sort 0:24:34.560 --> 0:24:38.239 of the all offense strategy of the ant world. Well, 0:24:38.240 --> 0:24:39.960 it seems to be working well for them. I mean 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:42.879 it's not like they busted this strategy out of on 0:24:43.160 --> 0:24:47.600 a test basis. This is this has been honed over 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:50.639 for millions of years. So there's another thing that I 0:24:50.680 --> 0:24:53.679 was thinking about because I was thinking about warfare and 0:24:53.760 --> 0:24:56.280 game of thrones. And one thing I like that's acknowledged 0:24:56.280 --> 0:24:58.879 in those books is sort of like the real resource 0:24:59.040 --> 0:25:01.919 needs of moving armies. You know, It's not like a 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:04.359 lot of fantasy where it's just sort of like uh, 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:10.359 almost ethereal warriors just ranging limitlessly to do their heroic deeds. 0:25:10.400 --> 0:25:12.280 You know, I mean, like you get the idea in 0:25:12.359 --> 0:25:16.720 those books that, like, our armies need supplies and all that. 0:25:16.840 --> 0:25:19.840 And and also it's acknowledged that there are huge numbers 0:25:19.840 --> 0:25:23.840 of people that accompany armies that are not themselves warriors. 0:25:23.920 --> 0:25:26.639 These are known as camp followers, and this is absolutely 0:25:26.680 --> 0:25:30.560 something that that happens in real warfare. Large armies don't 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:33.320 operate in a vacuum. They have material needs that are 0:25:33.320 --> 0:25:37.719 not necessarily related to battle, and they also create needs 0:25:37.760 --> 0:25:41.639 and opportunities for resource capture as they move and fight. 0:25:42.160 --> 0:25:45.119 And this this is why armies on campaign or historically 0:25:45.160 --> 0:25:47.760 a company both by camp followers that you know might 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:51.680 like sell things to soldiers, or might be family members 0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:55.960 of soldiers, or sell services to soldiers, um that kind 0:25:55.960 --> 0:25:58.520 of thing. But they are also often bandits that follow 0:25:58.520 --> 0:26:01.879 around moving armies. As you know, when an army comes 0:26:01.880 --> 0:26:06.520 in and attacks somewhere disturbs the existing order, that creates 0:26:06.520 --> 0:26:09.520 a lot of opportunities to exploit. Yeah. I mean it's 0:26:09.520 --> 0:26:13.359 an absolute disruption, so it makes sense that opportunists would 0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:15.400 be there to take advantage of it. And I agree. 0:26:15.400 --> 0:26:18.119 I think this is something that that that that is 0:26:18.160 --> 0:26:21.280 well explored in the Song of Ice and Fire books, 0:26:21.320 --> 0:26:25.560 the idea of of war that just you know, ravages 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:28.639 the countryside in so many ways, like it just just 0:26:28.840 --> 0:26:32.959 totally destroys all the resources in the area. Um. I 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.359 think I think they probably, I think they probably brought 0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:38.560 this out well in this series to to a certain extent, 0:26:38.680 --> 0:26:41.720 especially early on. Yeah, I mean towards the end of 0:26:41.760 --> 0:26:45.400 that those human wars like West Ross is just decimated 0:26:45.520 --> 0:26:49.040 and just tired and exhausted. Yeah, that's true. I mean 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:52.560 it reflects reality that that the war is not just 0:26:52.600 --> 0:26:55.000 a clash between armies, but it's the sort of the 0:26:55.119 --> 0:26:59.800 army versus the entire environment and everyone living within it. Um. 0:27:00.280 --> 0:27:02.919 And I think this is in some ways very true 0:27:03.640 --> 0:27:06.280 uh for ants as well. I was reading a really 0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:08.639 good article. Uh it was a short article, but a 0:27:08.640 --> 0:27:10.800 good one in nat Geo by the always great Ed 0:27:10.880 --> 0:27:15.639 young Um that was focused on work by Carl and 0:27:15.720 --> 0:27:18.560 Marian rhetten Meyer. I mentioned them a minute ago. These 0:27:18.560 --> 0:27:23.879 are ant experts who created a nearly exhaustive catalog of 0:27:24.040 --> 0:27:28.200 all of the animals that follow the army ant species 0:27:28.320 --> 0:27:31.600 seton Bercellii. So these are the camp followers in the 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:37.000 bandits that accompany this army uh, ed writes quote there's 0:27:37.040 --> 0:27:40.200 no doubting their success as predators, but army ants also 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:43.480 bring life wherever they march. They have an entourage of 0:27:43.560 --> 0:27:48.760 over five hundred and fifty species that hang around their legions, 0:27:48.800 --> 0:27:51.800 of which three hundred or so depend on the ants 0:27:51.840 --> 0:27:55.479 for their survival. So in their disruption of of the 0:27:55.560 --> 0:28:00.119 environment around them, they are also creating enough opportunities for 0:28:00.160 --> 0:28:04.080 the exploitation of resources that a full like three hundred 0:28:04.160 --> 0:28:07.200 or so species couldn't live without these ants, and another 0:28:07.240 --> 0:28:10.679 two hundred something or so uh depend on them in 0:28:10.800 --> 0:28:14.040 large ways. Wow, that's impressive. You know, I hadn't really 0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:16.760 thought about it. We talked about the ecological importance of 0:28:16.800 --> 0:28:20.320 the hants, um and UH and this is just another 0:28:20.400 --> 0:28:24.159 example of that. Yeah, So this includes like two hundred 0:28:24.280 --> 0:28:27.520 or so species of bird. One example is the oscillated 0:28:27.560 --> 0:28:30.640 ant bird. There are a number of antbirds ants as 0:28:30.680 --> 0:28:33.080 they As they move along the army, ants will flush 0:28:33.160 --> 0:28:37.600 insects out of hiding. They'll flush out insects, arachnids, small invertebrates, 0:28:37.720 --> 0:28:40.680 and and so the ant birds will watch this happen 0:28:40.760 --> 0:28:44.440 and swoop in and take advantage of the fleeing animals. Uh. 0:28:44.480 --> 0:28:48.239 They actually almost never prey on the ants themselves. And 0:28:48.280 --> 0:28:51.360 so the antbirds will fly around the forest checking in 0:28:51.520 --> 0:28:56.600 on seething bivouacs. Right they perform a bivouac check, They're like, okay, 0:28:56.640 --> 0:28:59.360 is this bivouac about to march? And if it looks 0:28:59.400 --> 0:29:01.200 like one is about to get the war rig ready 0:29:01.240 --> 0:29:04.240 and send its workers out on raids, the birds will 0:29:04.280 --> 0:29:08.320 converge here and start looking for opportunities. Apparently, the ant 0:29:08.360 --> 0:29:11.200 birds will fight amongst each other for the best spots. 0:29:11.240 --> 0:29:14.520 Of course, the best spot would basically be positioned just 0:29:14.760 --> 0:29:17.640 beyond the advancing front to catch all of the panic 0:29:17.680 --> 0:29:21.080 pray animals as soon as they're driven out of hiding. Interesting. 0:29:21.200 --> 0:29:23.480 You know, I wonder if anyone's ever tackled this from 0:29:23.480 --> 0:29:26.640 a sci fi perspective. You know, we're always encountering situations 0:29:26.680 --> 0:29:29.840 in sci fi where humanity is locked in an epic 0:29:29.880 --> 0:29:33.240 strup will struggle against some alien adversary or there or 0:29:33.240 --> 0:29:36.440 they've been partially wiped out by an alien adversary. I 0:29:36.440 --> 0:29:39.720 wonder if anyone's ever explored the idea of of, you know, 0:29:39.760 --> 0:29:42.720 the alien force comes that decimates the planet. You end 0:29:42.800 --> 0:29:45.560 up with like a post apocalyptic scenario. But then the 0:29:45.560 --> 0:29:49.320 primary antagonist is not the destroyer, because the destroyers moved on. 0:29:49.680 --> 0:29:52.320 It's the opportunists to come in their wake, right, the 0:29:52.360 --> 0:29:55.080 ant birds and the scavengers that come in after Earth 0:29:55.120 --> 0:29:57.880 has been Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that would be 0:29:57.880 --> 0:30:00.520 an interesting thing. I've never read anything like that, but 0:30:00.640 --> 0:30:03.040 I bet somebody has tried that idea. Yeah. Well, if 0:30:03.080 --> 0:30:05.239 they have, someone tell me what it is. And if 0:30:05.320 --> 0:30:07.440 it doesn't exist, somebody write it so I can read it. 0:30:08.480 --> 0:30:11.280 You know. Another interesting thing about these ant birds at 0:30:11.360 --> 0:30:14.040 Young points out is that on top of them existing 0:30:14.120 --> 0:30:17.080 as as sort of opportunists in what the ants do, 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:21.160 there are secondary opportunists. And these are a lot of 0:30:21.200 --> 0:30:25.200 species of butterflies that follow the ant birds to feed 0:30:25.240 --> 0:30:28.120 off of their droppings after they have preyed on the 0:30:28.160 --> 0:30:30.560 insects and other animals that are fleshed out by the ants. 0:30:31.640 --> 0:30:34.000 But beyond that, that there are a lot of other species, 0:30:34.040 --> 0:30:37.440 and there's not just species looking for food resources. Apparently 0:30:37.520 --> 0:30:41.680 parasitic wasps and flies that reproduced by implanting larvae in 0:30:41.720 --> 0:30:45.959 the bodies of other invertebrates. They also follow army ants warms, 0:30:46.120 --> 0:30:49.680 watching for the ants to drive crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches and 0:30:49.720 --> 0:30:52.600 other critters out of hiding, and then the parasites take 0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:58.280 immediate advantage at young sites caladoxia flies, but also quote 0:30:58.440 --> 0:31:03.760 stylo gaster flies which shoot harpoon like eggs at fleeing cockroaches, 0:31:04.240 --> 0:31:08.680 and and flesh flies that lay their eggs in the 0:31:08.720 --> 0:31:11.720 open wounds of animals that have been injured but not 0:31:11.880 --> 0:31:16.040 dismembered by the ants. So in some cases, not being 0:31:16.960 --> 0:31:21.560 killed by the ant horde um is worse than actually 0:31:22.040 --> 0:31:24.560 being decimated by it. Well, I guess it depends on 0:31:24.600 --> 0:31:26.080 what you think is worse. I mean, is it worse 0:31:26.160 --> 0:31:29.000 to be injured by ants and then get maggots implanted 0:31:29.000 --> 0:31:31.480 in you, or just to be killed just to be 0:31:31.560 --> 0:31:36.640 disassembled outright? Yeah. Even more amazingly, some parasites actually live 0:31:36.840 --> 0:31:41.640 within the ant bivouax themselves, having various adaptations. We've talked 0:31:41.640 --> 0:31:44.560 about aunt mimics before. There are apparently some species like this, 0:31:44.680 --> 0:31:48.280 like beetles that survived by mimicking ants and just sort 0:31:48.320 --> 0:31:52.600 of like hanging out among the ants trying to be undetected. 0:31:53.120 --> 0:31:55.400 But this was my favorite part. Ed Young writes that 0:31:55.520 --> 0:32:01.080 some parasites quote use the ants as mobile restaurants, jumping 0:32:01.240 --> 0:32:05.080 onto workers that are carrying food and eating their booty 0:32:05.320 --> 0:32:09.440 right under or over their very jaws. So they hang 0:32:09.440 --> 0:32:12.440 out on the ant head eating the food that the 0:32:12.480 --> 0:32:15.760 ant is carrying. Oh wow, again, I think for a 0:32:15.800 --> 0:32:19.240 lot of species this would require very special adaptations or 0:32:19.440 --> 0:32:24.040 you know, you would immediately become prey yourself. But it's 0:32:24.040 --> 0:32:28.320 just amazing to imagine the tiny, like full ecosystems basically 0:32:28.800 --> 0:32:32.840 that are made possible by the opportunities created by the 0:32:32.920 --> 0:32:36.280 chaos of a rating army. Yeah, in a way, you 0:32:36.360 --> 0:32:38.800 kind of have to come back to that that analogy 0:32:38.840 --> 0:32:42.000 of the superorganism, right, that the the ant colony is, 0:32:43.160 --> 0:32:45.080 well we might think of as the individual, like the 0:32:45.120 --> 0:32:47.760 ant colony is the body, and so it is going 0:32:47.800 --> 0:32:50.480 to have its own parasite. It's going to have its 0:32:50.520 --> 0:32:55.240 own symbiotic relationships and uh and and that's kind of 0:32:55.240 --> 0:32:58.080 what we're seeing here. Absolutely, I think this is just 0:32:58.120 --> 0:33:00.719 the most astonishing species. I feel like maybe we're not 0:33:00.760 --> 0:33:03.600 even done with with with Ston. We can move on 0:33:03.640 --> 0:33:06.520 in this episode, but but we may have to come 0:33:06.520 --> 0:33:08.640 back to them in the future. All right, and that note, 0:33:08.640 --> 0:33:10.240 we're going to take a quick break, but when we 0:33:10.320 --> 0:33:17.800 come back, we will consider the marauder ants. All Right, 0:33:17.840 --> 0:33:21.560 we're back. So we've already talked some about ant species 0:33:21.600 --> 0:33:24.800 that are referred to as the marauder ants. You read 0:33:24.800 --> 0:33:27.160 a passage from one of those articles by Martin W. 0:33:27.280 --> 0:33:31.160 Moffatt about marauder ants. Yeah, Moffatt points out that marauder 0:33:31.200 --> 0:33:35.560 ants excel in deploying troops in ways that increase efficiency 0:33:35.840 --> 0:33:38.560 and reduce the cost to a colony. And one thing 0:33:38.600 --> 0:33:42.440 that really makes them interesting, uh, is their variety in 0:33:42.640 --> 0:33:46.720 sizes among the workers. They vary in size more than 0:33:46.800 --> 0:33:50.600 workers in any other ant colony. So this is where 0:33:50.920 --> 0:33:53.840 it gets interesting in a sort of war game point 0:33:53.840 --> 0:33:59.160 of view manner, because essentially we're getting into different unit 0:33:59.200 --> 0:34:03.720 types here. So if you're fielding droids, for instance, on 0:34:03.120 --> 0:34:07.360 on on a battle, yeah, we're doing clone wars here. 0:34:07.720 --> 0:34:09.719 You're not. You're not just busting out a ton of 0:34:09.760 --> 0:34:12.560 standard B one battle droids, right, you're also busting out 0:34:12.840 --> 0:34:16.239 B two super heavy battle droids or heavy weapon uh 0:34:16.480 --> 0:34:21.440 droid deca, droidica um roly poly. Guys, if you're playing 0:34:21.480 --> 0:34:24.480 something like Warhammer forty thousand, it's not just space marines. 0:34:24.520 --> 0:34:28.520 You're also busting out specialized assault marines or heavy terminators, 0:34:28.560 --> 0:34:31.160 that sort of thing. And so Moffatt points out that 0:34:31.200 --> 0:34:36.040 the marauders deploy smaller miners, uh you know, that's what 0:34:36.080 --> 0:34:38.440 we call them, or foot soldiers, to the front line, 0:34:38.920 --> 0:34:43.000 and there these are just weak and hopeless uh individuals 0:34:43.040 --> 0:34:46.399 against adversaries, but there are tons of them, so they 0:34:46.440 --> 0:34:49.640 work as a kind of barricade. They bogged down the 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:53.480 enemy long enough for larger ants to move in the 0:34:53.520 --> 0:34:58.480 media's and the majors. So again, same species, same essentially 0:34:58.840 --> 0:35:01.640 um ver itty of this ant, but it's like it's 0:35:01.640 --> 0:35:05.880 a different cast, radically different body forms. Yeah, some of 0:35:05.920 --> 0:35:10.600 these individuals, the majors, compared to the miners, they are 0:35:10.800 --> 0:35:14.920 five hundred times as heavy as the smaller version. So 0:35:15.000 --> 0:35:18.920 these are real bruisers, I mean, these are these are monsters. Uh. 0:35:19.000 --> 0:35:22.040 My initial impulse would be to compare these like strictly 0:35:22.080 --> 0:35:26.400 to larger um, you know, bruiser heavy class fighters and 0:35:26.520 --> 0:35:29.239 fantasy armies, Like I'm thinking about some of the big 0:35:29.280 --> 0:35:33.719 specialized trolls and the armies of Mordor. But but then 0:35:33.760 --> 0:35:35.400 I was thinking about it. I was like, looking at 0:35:35.400 --> 0:35:39.719 the size deferential here, and Okay, let's assume that an orc, 0:35:39.840 --> 0:35:43.760 or say a stormtrooper, uh is roughly the average weight 0:35:43.800 --> 0:35:46.680 of a human. Okay, we're to multiply that by five 0:35:46.800 --> 0:35:51.640 hundred you're talking thirty four tons. So in the real world, 0:35:51.680 --> 0:35:54.960 that's essentially the difference between a human and a humpback whale. Okay, 0:35:55.000 --> 0:35:59.280 So that's crazy. Even even the troll would not really 0:35:59.360 --> 0:36:03.080 capture the size difference appropriately. Yeah, Like I ended up 0:36:03.080 --> 0:36:04.919 going down a rabbit hole trying to figure out how 0:36:04.960 --> 0:36:10.000 heavy different fantasy and sci fi army vehicles and units were. 0:36:10.480 --> 0:36:13.840 And it's best I can tell based on some fan estimates. 0:36:14.280 --> 0:36:17.360 You might draw a comparison here between a single Imperial 0:36:17.440 --> 0:36:20.719 stormtrooper and one of those two legged A T S 0:36:20.760 --> 0:36:25.440 T walkers. That would be the difference between a Marauder 0:36:25.600 --> 0:36:28.719 minor ant and a Marauder major ant. This is what 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:33.280 Mofata writes. Quote the miners sacrifices on the front. Rhymes 0:36:33.320 --> 0:36:36.920 assure a low mortality for the media's and the majors, 0:36:37.040 --> 0:36:39.919 which require far more resources for the colony to raise 0:36:39.960 --> 0:36:43.760 and men maintain. Putting the easily replaced fighters at greatest 0:36:43.840 --> 0:36:47.360 risk is a time honored battle technique. So, in other words, 0:36:47.560 --> 0:36:52.640 stormtroopers are notoriously bad shots, and they are apparently easily replaced, 0:36:52.960 --> 0:36:54.799 But your A. T. S. T S. Those are far 0:36:54.840 --> 0:36:58.200 more precious. Yeah, that will they cost more to make? Yeah. 0:36:58.520 --> 0:37:01.480 Ma Fata also points out at the marauders tactics here 0:37:01.560 --> 0:37:04.840 line up with the example one season armies throughout history 0:37:05.160 --> 0:37:11.080 the use of conscripted farmers and laborers alongside elite professional soldiers, 0:37:11.480 --> 0:37:14.160 with the common soldiers absorbing the worst of it while 0:37:14.160 --> 0:37:18.000 the elite units are protected and move in at strategic intervals. 0:37:18.360 --> 0:37:20.600 He also points out that marauders use what is known 0:37:20.600 --> 0:37:25.040 in military strategy as defeat in detail tactics, defeating an 0:37:25.160 --> 0:37:29.560 enemy unit by unit, rather than engaging in enemy's full strength. Now, 0:37:29.640 --> 0:37:33.600 marauder ants also battle their own kind, pitting colony against colony, 0:37:33.880 --> 0:37:37.400 and in these contests, the majors and the media's also 0:37:37.560 --> 0:37:40.480 hang back and let the miners do most of the fighting. 0:37:40.760 --> 0:37:43.560 Tearing each other apart, and in contests that tend to 0:37:43.560 --> 0:37:47.400 be even more brutal than the interspecies conflicts that also 0:37:47.480 --> 0:37:50.680 take place. I'm gonna get to some of the logic 0:37:50.760 --> 0:37:53.480 behind the differences and strategy here in just a minute. 0:37:53.480 --> 0:37:56.200 By the way, yeah, because Moffatt refers to the work 0:37:56.400 --> 0:38:00.040 of University of Bristol's Nigel Franks, who found that the 0:38:00.040 --> 0:38:03.440 hactics of these ants in particular is consistent with Lanchester's 0:38:03.480 --> 0:38:06.839 square law, an equation developed in World War One by 0:38:06.920 --> 0:38:10.960 engineer Frederick Lanchester, who also devised Lanchester's linear law, which 0:38:10.960 --> 0:38:14.040 will also touch based on here. Yeah, I keep wanting 0:38:14.040 --> 0:38:17.399 to say, Lanister, so don't let me say that you're 0:38:17.440 --> 0:38:22.280 coming back to the fantasy warfare analogy. So Lanchester's laws 0:38:22.360 --> 0:38:28.000 are a set of mathematical models trying to explain outcomes 0:38:28.080 --> 0:38:32.279 in battle based on various kinds of initial force disparity 0:38:32.440 --> 0:38:36.280 is generally the main disparities are going to be individual 0:38:36.400 --> 0:38:39.560 unit effectiveness, so like how much damage each unit can do, 0:38:40.160 --> 0:38:43.600 and then also the numbers of combatants on either side. 0:38:44.200 --> 0:38:48.160 Lanchester's square law in particular shows that in some types 0:38:48.239 --> 0:38:50.959 of combat this is not all conflicts, but in some 0:38:51.120 --> 0:38:55.400 types of combat, for example shooting wars involving masses of 0:38:55.440 --> 0:38:58.680 soldiers armed with rifles that can aim in any direction. 0:38:59.320 --> 0:39:02.680 In these types of combat, there are ways of organizing 0:39:02.760 --> 0:39:07.440 confrontations majorly to your advantage, just just based on the 0:39:07.520 --> 0:39:10.960 numbers of forces and how they're grouped specifically that the 0:39:11.200 --> 0:39:15.400 main takeaway is don't split your forces. Um So, to 0:39:15.440 --> 0:39:18.480 illustrate this, you can imagine, say you've got battle droids 0:39:18.480 --> 0:39:21.400 in in star wars, and say maybe one side has 0:39:21.440 --> 0:39:24.600 a hundred battle droids and the other side has exactly 0:39:24.640 --> 0:39:27.839 a hundred battle droids as well. If you imagine each 0:39:27.840 --> 0:39:30.640 of the battle droids can shoot its blaster one time 0:39:30.680 --> 0:39:34.759 every second, and each shot has a chance of destroying 0:39:34.760 --> 0:39:38.000 its target, you can work out that after one second 0:39:38.000 --> 0:39:41.080 of battle, both forces will be reduced equally by about 0:39:42.080 --> 0:39:45.000 maybe after another second, et cetera. And it just goes 0:39:45.040 --> 0:39:48.400 on as the two sides decreased by attrition at roughly 0:39:48.480 --> 0:39:52.080 the same rate, until both armies are mostly are fully 0:39:52.160 --> 0:39:55.400 vanquished at around the same time, unless for some reason 0:39:55.440 --> 0:39:58.879 one side gets an advantage early on. But that kind 0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:02.520 of process does not scale in a linear way. So 0:40:02.560 --> 0:40:05.920 if you have say a hundred droids versus an opponents 0:40:05.920 --> 0:40:08.440 at general grievous is your opposing army and he's just 0:40:08.480 --> 0:40:12.120 got fifty droids you you probably can assume that the 0:40:12.239 --> 0:40:16.000 larger force will win, but you might not understand how 0:40:16.200 --> 0:40:19.680 much of an advantage the larger force has. So if 0:40:19.719 --> 0:40:22.000 if you have you know, the same kind of thing working. 0:40:22.400 --> 0:40:25.319 After the first second, your hundred droids will probably have 0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:29.560 destroyed roughly half of your opponents fifty droids, but they 0:40:29.640 --> 0:40:32.000 really will not have destroyed many of yours at all, 0:40:32.080 --> 0:40:35.880 maybe only like twelve or so. And as each second 0:40:35.920 --> 0:40:40.319 of battle goes on, you reduce their fighting effectiveness more 0:40:40.440 --> 0:40:43.359 and more, until what you're left with in the end 0:40:44.040 --> 0:40:47.840 is very little casualties to the larger army and total 0:40:47.920 --> 0:40:51.040 decimation of the smaller one. And so this shows, for example, 0:40:51.080 --> 0:40:53.600 that if you have a force of a hundred battle droids, 0:40:53.640 --> 0:40:56.600 it would be much easier for that those one hundred 0:40:56.640 --> 0:41:00.840 battle droids to win two consecutive battles against fifty battle 0:41:00.920 --> 0:41:04.560 droids than to win one single battle against a force 0:41:04.600 --> 0:41:07.920 of one hundred. And this is exactly why divide and 0:41:07.960 --> 0:41:11.319 conquer is such an important principle of warfare. If you 0:41:11.440 --> 0:41:14.960 break your enemy up into smaller groupings. With these certain 0:41:15.000 --> 0:41:19.640 types of combat, your advantage over them does not increase linearly. 0:41:19.760 --> 0:41:23.200 It multiplies by the square. In fact, if you choose 0:41:23.239 --> 0:41:26.040 your battles wisely, you can even use this to allow 0:41:26.120 --> 0:41:28.839 a smaller force to beat a bigger one. So if 0:41:28.840 --> 0:41:31.760 you've got a hundred battle droids, General Graves has two hundred, 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:35.759 you could still potentially beat him overall by keeping your 0:41:35.800 --> 0:41:39.319 forces together and peeling off small segments of like ten 0:41:39.440 --> 0:41:42.920 or twenty at a time to face sequentially, with negligible 0:41:42.960 --> 0:41:46.640 losses to your own forces each time. So this is 0:41:46.680 --> 0:41:50.040 again where we come back to defeat in detail exactly right. So, 0:41:50.440 --> 0:41:54.279 in mathematical terms, what Lanchester predicted was that in these 0:41:54.280 --> 0:41:57.720 certain types of scenarios, uh, the strength of a group 0:41:57.719 --> 0:42:00.520 on the battlefield is the product of two things. The 0:42:00.560 --> 0:42:05.240 effectiveness of each fighting unit not times the number of units, 0:42:05.280 --> 0:42:08.560 but times the square of the number of units. And 0:42:08.600 --> 0:42:11.440 that's why it's known as the square law. And it 0:42:11.520 --> 0:42:15.000 tells you that for certain types of combat, sheer numbers 0:42:15.040 --> 0:42:20.320 can easily overwhelm differences in the effectiveness of individual fighting units. 0:42:20.800 --> 0:42:24.200 And it's interesting how this tends to go against what 0:42:24.600 --> 0:42:30.840 seems to be people's desire to understand, like dramatic violent 0:42:30.880 --> 0:42:33.920 conflict in narratives like in you know, epic poetry and 0:42:34.040 --> 0:42:37.120 action movies and all that, where it seems like what people, 0:42:37.400 --> 0:42:40.640 or at least what authors think people want to see, uh, 0:42:40.880 --> 0:42:44.319 is the idea that a single highly effective combatant you know, 0:42:44.360 --> 0:42:48.960 your John Wick or whoever, can overcome many less effective 0:42:49.080 --> 0:42:52.680 enemies ganging up on them. And for many types of combat, 0:42:52.840 --> 0:42:55.440 this is not how real fighting actually works. Numbers are 0:42:55.520 --> 0:42:59.640 significantly more important than skills, Like better to have five 0:43:00.200 --> 0:43:06.319 off brand discount battle droids than fifty elite i G units. Yeah, yeah, 0:43:06.320 --> 0:43:09.440 it it certainly does run run counter to our our 0:43:09.560 --> 0:43:12.319 our epic storytelling. Yeah, where it's like a one rag 0:43:12.400 --> 0:43:15.799 tag group of talented individuals can can can turn the 0:43:15.840 --> 0:43:20.160 tide of battle against against the faceless lord. Yeah yeah. 0:43:20.200 --> 0:43:22.319 And we should know again that the square law is 0:43:22.360 --> 0:43:25.880 not supposed to apply to all types of combat. For example, 0:43:26.320 --> 0:43:29.480 in situations where combatants have to face one another in 0:43:29.640 --> 0:43:33.080 one on one duels, one at a time, they're the 0:43:33.160 --> 0:43:36.680 advantages of superior numbers are reduced to something closer to 0:43:36.760 --> 0:43:40.920 a pure linear function, and the individual effectiveness of of 0:43:41.000 --> 0:43:43.840 each unit becomes a lot more relevant. And so the 0:43:43.880 --> 0:43:45.880 way this works out in the real world is that, 0:43:45.920 --> 0:43:49.960 like in situations where your forces do not have numerical superiority, 0:43:50.040 --> 0:43:52.960 military leaders who are conscious of these issues will try 0:43:53.040 --> 0:43:58.440 to engineer battle conditions to avoid square law scenarios and 0:43:58.680 --> 0:44:02.000 enforced linear laws in areas instead. One example would be 0:44:02.040 --> 0:44:06.800 like using natural terrain or fortifications to create choke points 0:44:06.840 --> 0:44:10.879 where the majority of the enemy forces are held back 0:44:10.960 --> 0:44:14.040 from the action. That can't all fight you at once. 0:44:14.160 --> 0:44:16.200 The number of them that can fight you at the 0:44:16.239 --> 0:44:19.760 same time is limited by topography, and thus the battle 0:44:19.840 --> 0:44:23.360 becomes it starts to resemble something more like a series 0:44:23.400 --> 0:44:26.759 of sequential duels instead of a simultaneous war of all 0:44:26.800 --> 0:44:29.840 against all. And of course examples of this in history 0:44:29.920 --> 0:44:31.520 or you know the way the thing about the way 0:44:31.520 --> 0:44:38.040 castles are constructed, narrow passageways, uh, you know, natural ravines, bridges, gates, 0:44:38.080 --> 0:44:41.200 a spiral staircase in the castle tower. These tend to 0:44:41.280 --> 0:44:44.399 reduce the salience of the square law advantage and help 0:44:44.440 --> 0:44:46.719 you out, especially if you've got a smaller number of 0:44:46.760 --> 0:44:50.400 more effective fighters. So, to bring this back to ants, 0:44:50.480 --> 0:44:53.480 the question here is which of these models is better 0:44:53.520 --> 0:44:56.040 at predicting the outcomes of ant wars. Is it the 0:44:56.080 --> 0:45:00.400 linear model where there's this direct linear relationship between size 0:45:00.400 --> 0:45:02.320 of forces in the outcome, or is it the square 0:45:02.320 --> 0:45:06.360 model where the larger numbers of concentrated forces just easily 0:45:06.440 --> 0:45:11.879 overwhelm other concerns like the like individual fighting unit effectiveness. Uh. 0:45:11.920 --> 0:45:14.400 There was a paper that was published in the nineteen 0:45:14.480 --> 0:45:17.520 nineties and the journal Animal Behavior. This was in nine 0:45:18.920 --> 0:45:22.680 by Mary E. A. White House and Klaus Jaffa called 0:45:22.920 --> 0:45:26.520 ant wars combat strategies territory and nest defense in the 0:45:26.600 --> 0:45:30.880 leaf cutting ant Atta leave Agatta And according to their research, 0:45:30.960 --> 0:45:33.840 they found quote the leaf cutting ant atta leave Agatta 0:45:34.160 --> 0:45:39.000 responded to a simulated vertebrate threat by recruiting many soldiers, 0:45:39.080 --> 0:45:42.600 and the soldiers would be a special special fighters large workers, 0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:47.600 but responded to con specific and interspecific ant threats by 0:45:47.640 --> 0:45:52.120 recruiting mainly small ants. So the vertebrate attack here was 0:45:52.160 --> 0:45:55.160 simulated pretty much by poking a stick. And you know, 0:45:55.200 --> 0:45:57.160 as they poke a stick into the entrance of the 0:45:57.200 --> 0:46:00.400 colony nest and then shake it for twenty seconds. And 0:46:00.440 --> 0:46:03.520 this was meant to mimic the mechanical disturbance that would 0:46:03.560 --> 0:46:06.160 be caused by an ants by the ant's main predator, 0:46:06.280 --> 0:46:09.680 the armadillo. In these attacks, what the ants would tend 0:46:09.719 --> 0:46:12.040 to do is they would bring more of their elite 0:46:12.120 --> 0:46:15.759 fighters to defend the nest. So in this situation it 0:46:15.800 --> 0:46:20.480 appears evolution maybe favoring the linear reasoning in this case. Meanwhile, 0:46:20.560 --> 0:46:24.320 when the ants are attacked by other ants, they tended 0:46:24.360 --> 0:46:28.600 to respond instead with overwhelming numbers of less dedicated fighters. 0:46:28.719 --> 0:46:31.960 So a threat from arrival ant colony seems to have 0:46:32.000 --> 0:46:35.520 been solved by natural selection to select for behaviors motivated 0:46:35.560 --> 0:46:40.000 by the square law. Along these lines, Mofat also points 0:46:40.040 --> 0:46:43.560 out the quote a fighter's value to its colony bears 0:46:43.600 --> 0:46:47.319 on the risks the ant takes. The more expendable she is, 0:46:47.400 --> 0:46:50.120 the more likely she is to end up in harm's way. 0:46:50.760 --> 0:46:54.560 As such, marauder ants, he writes, they guard their foraging 0:46:54.560 --> 0:46:58.839 trails with old and or maimed workers, and in fire ants, 0:46:58.880 --> 0:47:01.840 it's been observed the old stay and fight, while the 0:47:02.000 --> 0:47:05.600 very young runaway and en fireman's more in their prime 0:47:05.640 --> 0:47:09.440 will actually uh fake their own deaths. Wow, we'll fake 0:47:09.480 --> 0:47:12.600 their own deaths. I mean. This is again something that 0:47:12.680 --> 0:47:15.160 makes more sense if you think about the ant Colony 0:47:15.239 --> 0:47:18.200 as a single super organism. It's like it's it's putting 0:47:18.239 --> 0:47:23.440 the the already damaged or less effective parts of itself 0:47:23.480 --> 0:47:26.120 out in front to absorb the brunt of the of 0:47:26.200 --> 0:47:29.440 the violence. Yeah, alright, So at this point you're you're 0:47:29.560 --> 0:47:32.040 you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, they're out of time, 0:47:32.160 --> 0:47:34.239 and you you would be right, just as the ant 0:47:34.280 --> 0:47:37.760 War is heating up. Uh, we're gonna have to close 0:47:37.760 --> 0:47:40.320 out this episode, but fear not, we're gonna be back 0:47:40.560 --> 0:47:43.800 with a third ant War episode that will more or 0:47:43.880 --> 0:47:46.879 less round everything out. Though a word of warning, if 0:47:46.960 --> 0:47:49.640 I am, if I'm looking at the schedule correctly, there 0:47:49.680 --> 0:47:53.840 will be another episode that will publish before the third 0:47:53.840 --> 0:47:57.600 ant War episode publishes, So just bear with us. The 0:47:57.600 --> 0:48:00.840 third ant War installment is on its way in the meantime. 0:48:00.840 --> 0:48:02.520 If you like to check out other episodes of Stuff 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:04.680 to Blow your Mind, you can find us anywhere you 0:48:04.719 --> 0:48:07.239 get your podcast and wherever that happens to be. Just 0:48:07.320 --> 0:48:10.600 make sure you rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks as 0:48:10.600 --> 0:48:14.040 always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If 0:48:14.040 --> 0:48:15.400 you would like to get in touch with us with 0:48:15.480 --> 0:48:17.759 feedback on this episode or any other to suggest a 0:48:17.800 --> 0:48:19.840 topic for the future, or just to say hello. You 0:48:19.880 --> 0:48:22.880 can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your 0:48:22.920 --> 0:48:33.280 Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production 0:48:33.360 --> 0:48:36.120 of I heart Radio. 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