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Speaker 1: Deliver thyself as a row from the hand of the hunter,

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Speaker 1: and as a bird from the hand of the fowler.

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Speaker 1: Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and

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Speaker 1: be wise, which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth

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Speaker 1: her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in

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Speaker 1: the harvest. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind production

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Speaker 1: of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

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Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And that was a reading from the King

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Speaker 1: James translation of the Bible. It's from the Book of Proverbs,

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Speaker 1: chapter six. Uh. And I was looking right before we started.

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, let me check my scholarly Oxford

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Speaker 1: Annotated edition to the Bible to see if it's got

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Speaker 1: any insights on how the author of this passage knew

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Speaker 1: that all of the worker ants in the colony were female.

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Speaker 1: And no, it just says this passage appeals to the

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Speaker 1: natural world. 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 aunt colony correct and also, uh, doesn't get hung

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

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

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Speaker 1: accurate reading of ant civilization. You know, I didn't even

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: dead 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 trying, 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 uh.

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: that they are a bit more barbaric and uh ravaging.

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Speaker 1: I guess yeah. For a biblical parallels, some of these

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Speaker 1: ants stories are going to be closer to the Conquest

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

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Speaker 1: funny 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 uh,

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Speaker 1: and 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 most most places. I think I picked it

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: 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 but in this book, the

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: and every one of them is an indra that rose

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: of al Niki, the author of the Ramayana, emerged from

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Speaker 1: an ant hill or a valmika after ten years of meditation.

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Speaker 1: So in this case, the the author um of the

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Speaker 1: Hindu epic ends up taking on the name of the

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Speaker 1: ant hill as part of their new emerged identity. That's

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Speaker 1: interesting and counterintuitive because it imagines the ant hill as

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

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Speaker 1: like 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 seems 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 two to

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Speaker 1: really 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 an

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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 episode,

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Speaker 1: you've probably figured out that we're talking about aunts and UH.

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Speaker 1: And this is indeed the second in our Aunt Wars

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Speaker 1: UH series. So if you didn't listen to the last episode,

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Speaker 1: we would recommend you go back and give it a listen.

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Speaker 1: We discussed the empire, the ants, and and very broadly

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Speaker 1: the endless wars that form the boundaries of their individual kingdoms.

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Speaker 1: I want to go back again to the writings of

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Speaker 1: Mark W. Moffatt Uh, and this is from that Scientific

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Speaker 1: American article that I previously mentioned that's also hosted on

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Speaker 1: his website at dor bugs dot com. He writes, quote,

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Speaker 1: in Ghana, I witnessed aceeeving carpet of workers of the

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Speaker 1: army ants species dorilyss Nigricans searching together across an area

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Speaker 1: hundred feet wide. These African army ants, which in species

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Speaker 1: such as de Nigricans that move and broad swaths, are

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Speaker 1: called driver ants, slice the flesh off their enemy or

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Speaker 1: quarry with blade like jaws, and can make short work

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Speaker 1: of victims thousands of times their size, although vertebrate creatures

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Speaker 1: can usually outrun ants. In Gabon, I once saw an

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Speaker 1: antelope caught in a snare, eaten alive by a colony

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Speaker 1: of driver ants. That highlights something that I was planning

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Speaker 1: on talking about in just a little bit. When we

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Speaker 1: get to one particular or species of army end that

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Speaker 1: I was finding really fascinating. But uh, but I guess

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Speaker 1: we can address it now. So, you know the Kingdom

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

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Speaker 1: movies and stuff where the the army ants essentially are

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

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Speaker 1: the Hollywood acid that that strips the human to the

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

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Speaker 1: stripped the human to the bone in seconds. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if either of those are really very accurately reflective

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Speaker 1: of stuff that happens in the real world. And then

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Speaker 1: the ants are the next thing, the Hollywood army ants

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

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

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Speaker 1: would say with a with a large animal that can move,

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Speaker 1: a lot of army ants are are going to be

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Speaker 1: absolutely apocalyptic in their implications for smaller animals, for insects, arachnids, centipedes,

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Speaker 1: and even small vertebrates like little frogs and snakes and stuff.

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Speaker 1: But larger animals they don't actually represent a threat like that,

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Speaker 1: like you can ease only get away from them. The

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Speaker 1: only case I would imagine where army ants might represent

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Speaker 1: a real threat to larger animals would be if you

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Speaker 1: are totally immobilized, right, so if you're caught in a snare,

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Speaker 1: buried up to your neck in the sand, that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing. Right, And even then I don't know if

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Speaker 1: they would necessarily kill you, because they're they're looking for

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Speaker 1: their main prey species, which are going to be all

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Speaker 1: kinds of invertebrates. Yeah, they're probably going after something like

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Speaker 1: termites or other ants. Uh. Heads sticking out of the

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Speaker 1: ground not really on the menu usually, But but I

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Speaker 1: wouldn't want to try it. I'm not saying necessarily safe.

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Speaker 1: That could be the next big Hollywood magician act though,

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Speaker 1: right David Blaine Bury's I mean, I'd be surprised if

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Speaker 1: he hasn't done it already. Well, no, it's the next

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Speaker 1: big confidence game, you know. So they got to walk

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Speaker 1: across the hot coals. That's like the confidence building exercise.

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Speaker 1: But but the next stage is the bury yourself up

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Speaker 1: to the neck and let the army ants come. Well,

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Speaker 1: another a little piece of health cleaning from the last

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

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Speaker 1: I briefly mentioned pheromones as being essential to aunt communication.

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Speaker 1: And I don't want to gloss over this too much

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Speaker 1: because I imagine many of you have have seen videos

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Speaker 1: of pheromonal demonstrations, uh, you know, the the the ant Overlord. EO.

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Speaker 1: Wilson himself does this at times in which a pheromone

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Speaker 1: is painted like a paintbrush or a qutap or something

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Speaker 1: across the surface and then ants follow it and is

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Speaker 1: informative as well as a demonstration like this can be.

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Speaker 1: It don't take it to mean that there's just there's

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Speaker 1: a real blunt simplicity to it. As as Wilson himself stresses,

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Speaker 1: there is a pheromonal language for ants. Uh. Any given

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Speaker 1: ant species uses a whole palide of pheromones and chemical

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Speaker 1: signals to communicate. Yeah, it can be very complex, though

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Speaker 1: there are also very simple ways to see it in

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Speaker 1: action and like creating the pheromone trails that are like. EO.

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Speaker 1: Wilson was involved in research that discovered one of the

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Speaker 1: main glands in the ants gaster that deposits of pheromone

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Speaker 1: that creates the trail leading to food. And generally if

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Speaker 1: you deposit this pheromone, as you will see, you know,

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Speaker 1: humans can extract it and put it in the bottle,

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Speaker 1: like you're saying. To these demonstrations where you just put

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Speaker 1: a line of it down on a table and suddenly

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Speaker 1: the ants form up and follow the line. Those can

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Speaker 1: be striking direct demonstrations, even though the full web of

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Speaker 1: pheromonal interactions can be much more complex. And you can

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Speaker 1: also easily do this yourself, even without um the extraction

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Speaker 1: of that kind of pheromone, simply by if you've ever

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Speaker 1: tried dragging your finger across an ant trail where like

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Speaker 1: you know, if you can smudge the chemicals away and

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Speaker 1: maybe disrupt it with some of the oils from your

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Speaker 1: own finger, suddenly the movement of the ants becomes chaotic.

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Speaker 1: It's all confused because the deposition of chemicals that has

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Speaker 1: created this trail has been broken. I've been I've been

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Speaker 1: noticing these ant trail ant trails a lot more on

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Speaker 1: my walks recently. Uh, my family and I will go

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Speaker 1: out to some various nature walking by trails in the

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Speaker 1: area that they're not that populated it and some of

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Speaker 1: them have lee you know, slabs of concrete, and they'll

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Speaker 1: be these little essentially a little trenches that stretch across

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Speaker 1: them where one slab meets the other, and invariably those

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Speaker 1: are the trenches through which the ants moved, not over

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Speaker 1: the top where they're going to potentially get smashed by

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Speaker 1: 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, now, speaking

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Speaker 1: of the Oh Wilson, I want to point out to

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Speaker 1: everybody we've talked about Io Wilson on the show before,

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Speaker 1: an EO. 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 them,

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

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Speaker 1: years ago titled EO. Wilson of Ants and NN. 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 here in the United States. You

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: world 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, and

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Speaker 1: I 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

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Speaker 1: attitude 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 Tails

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Speaker 1: from the Ant World. All right, on that note, we're

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

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

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Speaker 1: the wars that they rage. 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 Emlin, 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 distended 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 out doing 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 at 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 that. I mean, obviously I

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Speaker 1: don't think Emland'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: the 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: they will battle other forces for control of food resources

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

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Speaker 1: claim their larva and their pupa as food. Yeah. And

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

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

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Speaker 1: the ant warfare that we've discussed before, say between uh

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Speaker 1: different types of fire ants, even here in the in

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

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Speaker 1: the scale and with the tenacity of army answer marauder

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: known as eston Bercelli i. UH. There are a lot

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Speaker 1: of actually different species event that are commonly referred to

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Speaker 1: as army ants, but seton Bricellii is I think the

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Speaker 1: one species that people are most often talking about with

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Speaker 1: that general title. They're very charismatic, well observed and distributed species.

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Speaker 1: They live in the humid equatorial regions of Central and

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Speaker 1: South America, especially in the Amazon rainforest, but with the

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Speaker 1: range extending up through Mexico and down south of Brazil

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Speaker 1: into Argentina. Uh. But they're primarily in the equatorial rainforests,

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Speaker 1: and these ants will form colonies of several hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: adults at a time with this rapacious foraging behavior, satisfying

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Speaker 1: the energy needs of the colony with raids that cover

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Speaker 1: hundreds of meters according to one estimate. I believe this

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Speaker 1: was cited by Carl and Marion rhetten Meyer, who'll I'll

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Speaker 1: mention again in a moment their aunt experts. But the

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Speaker 1: figure is that on average, each colony of Seton Bricelli

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Speaker 1: i kills and eats about thirty thousands small animals every day. Wow,

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Speaker 1: thirty every single day. Uh. And so they have this

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Speaker 1: carnivorous diet, this enormous carnivorous diet that is especially important

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Speaker 1: because they're trying to supply the developing larvae of their

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Speaker 1: colony with a high fat diet that the larvae need

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

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Speaker 1: fat and the adults go out rating. So there's another

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Speaker 1: really interesting thing about this species to me, which is

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Speaker 1: that they do not make permanent nests. Seton Brichelli I

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Speaker 1: do not make permanent nests. We often think of ant

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

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Speaker 1: answer environmental engineers. But due to the energy needs of

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Speaker 1: this species, they can't be tied down to one place

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Speaker 1: for too long. Imagine them trying to form a permanent

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Speaker 1: nest while their larvae are growing and they have these

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Speaker 1: huge require months for animal fat, you know, other insects

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Speaker 1: to bring in and all that. Within a day or

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Speaker 1: two they probably would have cleared out all of the

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Speaker 1: food sources within I don't know, maybe a few hundred

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Speaker 1: square meters of wherever they are. So instead, Esseton Bricelli

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Speaker 1: I builds a mobile fortress known as a bivouac. This

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Speaker 1: is a moving fortress that protects the queen and the

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Speaker 1: developing larvae. But the fortress is made not out of

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Speaker 1: structures or materials from the environment. It is made out

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

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Speaker 1: a war rig four ants made out of the interlocked

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Speaker 1: bodies of living ants, like a cage of millions of legs, antennae,

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Speaker 1: and mandibles. I want to quote from Peter Tyson, writing

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Speaker 1: for Nova in an article about these things, quote this

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Speaker 1: elliptical mass talking about the bivouac. This elliptical mass maybe

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Speaker 1: three feet across and hold up to seven hundred thousand ants.

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Speaker 1: When they need to move to a new site where

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Speaker 1: they bivouac on the surface, rather than build a nest,

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Speaker 1: eber Chellii workers go first ferrying food and larvae. Only

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Speaker 1: after nightfall does the queen follow escorted by a massive

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Speaker 1: soldier ants that completely surround her and will defend her

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Speaker 1: with their lives. So the bivouac again, is this moving fortress.

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Speaker 1: The queen is inside and the cage cannot be breached.

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Speaker 1: Uh this this was just so captivating to me. And

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Speaker 1: so if you're looking for these things in the forest,

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Speaker 1: the bivouac can sometimes be found inside a hollow log

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Speaker 1: or just on the forest floor, but also sometimes it

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Speaker 1: can be found hanging suspended from tree limbs. Imagine that

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Speaker 1: like a dangling fortress for ants made out of ants,

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Speaker 1: and it falls in line with a more general tendency

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Speaker 1: of some ant species, including this one, toward body based

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Speaker 1: engineering projects. These army ants are also known to say,

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Speaker 1: assist the mobility of their horses by filling in potholes

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Speaker 1: along the foraging route with plugs made out of live ants,

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Speaker 1: so you just smooth over, smooth over the surface with ants,

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Speaker 1: or also for building bridges out of themselves to allow

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

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Speaker 1: these BiVO wax also uh emit an other worldly stinch,

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Speaker 1: this amazing smell that allows you to locate them by

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Speaker 1: smell alone. Within the rainforest. I would love to know

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Speaker 1: what this smells like. You Now, all of this is

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Speaker 1: a wonderful example two of the super organism aspects of ants.

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Speaker 1: How with other creatures we we we we talk about

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Speaker 1: the individual, you know, and in terms of understanding the species.

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Speaker 1: But but with ants, you look at behaviors like this

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Speaker 1: and you see there's such cohesion, there's there's there's such

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Speaker 1: use social um perfection that you can't look at an

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Speaker 1: individual ant to understand them. You have to look at

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Speaker 1: what the pliny itself is doing. But there's another thing

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Speaker 1: I was thinking about with this model of ant life,

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Speaker 1: the fact that these ants create no permanent nests. It

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Speaker 1: sort of reminds me of the idea of the strategic

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Speaker 1: advantage of offense. You know, the old saying that the

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Speaker 1: best defense is a good offense. This is actually considered

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Speaker 1: true in some cases in military theory, because the reasoning

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Speaker 1: goes that when you're on the attack, you have freedom. Basically,

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Speaker 1: you like, as you're on the attack, you are creating

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Speaker 1: options for yourself, versus when you're defending, you have constraints,

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Speaker 1: you have limited options. This is often true just for

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Speaker 1: example in chess. Uh you know the chess players talk

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Speaker 1: about the initiative that you gain when you're on the attack.

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Speaker 1: You're constantly limiting the options for your opponents next move

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Speaker 1: if they have to defend their pieces against an attack

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Speaker 1: that you just set up. And this is obviously true

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Speaker 1: across multiple context It's known as maintaining the initiative. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously there are there are many uh, there are many

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Speaker 1: advantages you can get from having a defensive structure, like

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Speaker 1: a nest that's buried down in the ground. You know,

428
00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: the queen is very well protected, but that also limits

429
00:24:12,280 --> 00:24:14,320
Speaker 1: your options, right and and this is sort of the

430
00:24:14,400 --> 00:24:18,160
Speaker 1: all offense strategy of the ant world. Well, it seems

431
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:19,800
Speaker 1: to be working well for them. I mean, it's not

432
00:24:19,880 --> 00:24:23,640
Speaker 1: like they busted this strategy out of on a test basis.

433
00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:29,239
Speaker 1: This has been honed over for millions of years. So

434
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:31,720
Speaker 1: there's another thing that I was thinking about because I

435
00:24:32,200 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: was thinking about warfare and Game of Thrones, and one

436
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: thing I like that's acknowledged in those books is sort

437
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 1: of like the real resource needs of moving armies. You know,

438
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,919
Speaker 1: it's not like a lot of fantasy where it's just

439
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:48,480
Speaker 1: sort of like uh, almost ethereal warriors just ranging limitlessly

440
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 1: to do their heroic deeds, you know, I mean, like

441
00:24:50,960 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: you get the idea in those books that like, our

442
00:24:53,880 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: armies need supplies and all that. And and also it's

443
00:24:57,240 --> 00:25:00,520
Speaker 1: acknowledged that there are huge numbers of people that a

444
00:25:00,640 --> 00:25:04,000
Speaker 1: company armies that are not themselves warriors. These are known

445
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:07,359
Speaker 1: as camp followers, and this is absolutely something that that

446
00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: happens in real warfare. Large armies don't operate in a vacuum.

447
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: They have material needs that are not necessarily related to battle,

448
00:25:15,480 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 1: and they also create needs and opportunities for resource capture

449
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:22,720
Speaker 1: as they move and fight. And this this is why

450
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: armies on campaign or historically a company both by camp

451
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 1: followers that you know, might like sell things to soldiers

452
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:33,280
Speaker 1: or might be family members of soldiers, or sell services

453
00:25:33,320 --> 00:25:36,159
Speaker 1: to soldiers, um, that kind of thing. But there are

454
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: also often bandits that follow around moving armies because you know,

455
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 1: when an army comes in and attacks somewhere, disturbs the

456
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: existing order, that creates a lot of opportunities to exploit. Yeah,

457
00:25:48,720 --> 00:25:51,680
Speaker 1: I mean, it's an absolute disruption, so it makes sense

458
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,159
Speaker 1: that opportunists would be there to take advantage of it.

459
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:57,240
Speaker 1: And I agree, I think this is something that that

460
00:25:57,240 --> 00:25:59,960
Speaker 1: that that is well explored in the Song of Ice

461
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,080
Speaker 1: and Fire books, the idea of of war that just

462
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: you know, ravages the countryside in so many ways, like

463
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: it just just totally destroys all the resources in the area. Um.

464
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: I think I think they probably, I think they probably

465
00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 1: brought this out well in this series to to a

466
00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: certain extent, especially early one. Yeah, I mean towards the

467
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,840
Speaker 1: end of that those human wars like West Ross is

468
00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: just decimated and just tired and exhausted. Yeah, that's true.

469
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: And I mean it reflects reality that that the war

470
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:34,000
Speaker 1: is not just a clash between armies, but it's the

471
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,719
Speaker 1: sort of the army versus the entire environment and everyone

472
00:26:37,800 --> 00:26:41,320
Speaker 1: living within it. And I think this is in some

473
00:26:41,359 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: ways very true, Uh for ants as well. I was

474
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,000
Speaker 1: reading a really good article. Uh it was a short article,

475
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: but a good one in that GEO by the always

476
00:26:49,920 --> 00:26:54,400
Speaker 1: great ed young Um that was focused on work by

477
00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: Carl and Marian retten Meyer. I mentioned them a minute ago.

478
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 1: These are ant experts who created it a nearly exhaustive

479
00:27:02,160 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: catalog of all of the animals that follow the army

480
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 1: ant species seton Bercellia. So these are the camp followers

481
00:27:10,920 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 1: in the bandits that accompany this army uh, Ed writes, quote,

482
00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 1: there's no doubting their success as predators, but army ants

483
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 1: also bring life wherever they march. They have an entourage

484
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: of over five hundred and fifty species that hang around

485
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 1: their legions, of which three hundred or so depend on

486
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 1: the ants for their survival. So in their disruption of

487
00:27:34,720 --> 00:27:38,320
Speaker 1: of the environment around them, they are also creating enough

488
00:27:38,560 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 1: opportunities for the exploitation of resources that a full like

489
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 1: three hundred or so species couldn't live without these ants,

490
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:49,919
Speaker 1: and another two hundred something or so uh depend on

491
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 1: them in large ways. Wow, that's impressive. You know, I

492
00:27:53,000 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: hadn't really thought about it. We talked about the ecological

493
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,359
Speaker 1: importance of the hants um and uh and this is

494
00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: just another example of that. Yeah, so this includes like

495
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:06,240
Speaker 1: two hundred or so species of bird. One example is

496
00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:09,040
Speaker 1: the oscillated ant bird. There are a number of antbirds

497
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: ants as they as they move along the army ants

498
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,719
Speaker 1: will flush insects out of hiding. They'll flush out insects, arachnids,

499
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: small invertebrates, and and so the ant birds will watch

500
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: this happen and swoop in and take advantage of the

501
00:28:22,400 --> 00:28:25,960
Speaker 1: fleeing animals. Uh, they actually almost never prey on the

502
00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: ants themselves, And so the antbirds will fly around the

503
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:34,159
Speaker 1: forest checking in on seething bivouacs. Right they perform a

504
00:28:34,200 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: bivouac check, they're like, okay, is this bivouac about to march?

505
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:39,840
Speaker 1: And if it looks like one is about to get

506
00:28:39,840 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 1: the war rig ready and send its workers out on raids,

507
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:47,280
Speaker 1: and the birds will converge here and start looking for opportunities. Apparently,

508
00:28:47,280 --> 00:28:49,840
Speaker 1: the ant birds will fight amongst each other for the

509
00:28:49,880 --> 00:28:53,160
Speaker 1: best spots. Of course, the best spot would basically be

510
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,680
Speaker 1: positioned just beyond the advancing front to catch all of

511
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,080
Speaker 1: the panic prey animals as soon as they're driven out

512
00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:02,000
Speaker 1: of hiding. Interesting. You know, I wonder if anyone's ever

513
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: tackled this from a sci fi perspective. You know, we're

514
00:29:04,520 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 1: we're always encountering situations in sci fi where humanity is

515
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: locked in a you know, an epic strup will struggle

516
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:13,720
Speaker 1: against some alien adversary or there or they've been partially

517
00:29:13,880 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: wiped out by an alien adversary. I wonder if anyone's

518
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: ever explored the idea of of, you know, the alien

519
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 1: force comes that decimates the planet. You end up with

520
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:26,160
Speaker 1: like a post apocalyptic scenario. But then the primary antagonist

521
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 1: is not the destroyer because the destroyers moved on. It's

522
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 1: the opportunists to come in their wake, right, the ant

523
00:29:32,200 --> 00:29:34,800
Speaker 1: birds and the scavengers that come in after Earth has

524
00:29:34,840 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: been Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that would be an

525
00:29:37,560 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: interesting thing. I've never read anything like that, but I

526
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 1: bet somebody has tried that idea. Yeah. Well, if they have,

527
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,600
Speaker 1: someone tell me what it is. And if it doesn't exist,

528
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: somebody write it so I can read it. You know.

529
00:29:48,240 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: Another interesting thing about these ant birds at young points

530
00:29:51,480 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 1: out is that on top of them existing as as

531
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,160
Speaker 1: sort of opportunists in what the ants do, there are

532
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:01,240
Speaker 1: secondary opportunists. And these are are a lot of species

533
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: of butterflies that follow the ant birds to feed off

534
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: of their droppings after they have preyed on the insects

535
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: and other animals that are fleshed out by the ants.

536
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 1: But beyond that that, there are a lot of other species.

537
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,000
Speaker 1: And there's not just species looking for food resources. Apparently

538
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:21,240
Speaker 1: parasitic wasps and flies that reproduced by implanting larvae in

539
00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:25,120
Speaker 1: the bodies of other invertebrates. They also follow army ants

540
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: worms watching for the ants to drive crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches,

541
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: and other critters out of hiding, and then the parasites

542
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:37,400
Speaker 1: take immediate advantage at young sites caladoxia flies, but also

543
00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:42,000
Speaker 1: quote stylo gaster flies which shoot harpoon like eggs at

544
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,920
Speaker 1: fleeing cockroaches, and and flesh flies that lay their eggs

545
00:30:47,960 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: in the open wounds of animals that have been injured

546
00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 1: but not dismembered by the ants. Oh wow, So in

547
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 1: some cases, not being killed by the ant horde um

548
00:30:59,400 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: is war worse than actually being decimated. About it, well,

549
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on what you think is worse.

550
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:06,880
Speaker 1: I mean, is it worse to be injured by ants

551
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:09,960
Speaker 1: and then get maggots implanted in you, or just to

552
00:31:10,040 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 1: be killed just to be disassembled out right? Yeah? Even

553
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 1: more amazingly, some parasites actually live within the ant bivouax themselves,

554
00:31:19,000 --> 00:31:22,640
Speaker 1: having various adaptations. We've talked about aunt mimics before. There

555
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,120
Speaker 1: are apparently some species like this, like beetles, that survived

556
00:31:26,160 --> 00:31:28,760
Speaker 1: by mimicking ants and just sort of like hanging out

557
00:31:29,120 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: among the ants trying to be undetected. But this was

558
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: my favorite part ed. Young writes that some parasites quote

559
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:41,960
Speaker 1: use the ants as mobile restaurants, jumping onto workers that

560
00:31:42,000 --> 00:31:45,880
Speaker 1: are carrying food and eating their booty right under or

561
00:31:46,040 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 1: over their very jaws. So they hang out on the

562
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:54,680
Speaker 1: ant head, eating the food that the ant is carrying. Again,

563
00:31:54,720 --> 00:31:57,000
Speaker 1: I think for a lot of species this would require

564
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:00,640
Speaker 1: very special adaptations or you know, you would immediately become

565
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:05,480
Speaker 1: prey yourself. But it's just amazing to imagine the tiny,

566
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:10,800
Speaker 1: like full ecosystems basically that are made possible by the

567
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:15,160
Speaker 1: opportunities created by the chaos of a rating army. Yeah,

568
00:32:15,200 --> 00:32:16,880
Speaker 1: in a way, you kind of have to come back

569
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,240
Speaker 1: to that that analogy of the superorganism, right, that the

570
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: the ant colony is what we might think of as

571
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,479
Speaker 1: the individual, Like the ant colony is the body, and

572
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 1: so it is going to have its own parasites, It's

573
00:32:29,400 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: going to have its own uh symbiotic relationships and uh

574
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 1: and and that's kind of what we're seeing here. Absolutely,

575
00:32:36,680 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 1: I think this is just the most astonishing species. I

576
00:32:39,360 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 1: feel like maybe we're not even done with with with Ston.

577
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,440
Speaker 1: We can move on in this episode, but but we

578
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: may have to come back to them in the future.

579
00:32:47,440 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: All right, and that note, we're going to take a

580
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we come back, we will consider

581
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:59,240
Speaker 1: the marauder ants. All Right, we're back. So we've already

582
00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: talked some about ant species that are referred to as

583
00:33:02,200 --> 00:33:05,560
Speaker 1: the marauder ants. You read a passage from one of

584
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: those articles by Martin W. Moffatt about marauder ants. Yeah.

585
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: Moffatt points out that marauder ants excel in deploying troops

586
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: in ways that increase efficiency and reduce the cost to

587
00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: a colony. And one thing that really makes them interesting, uh,

588
00:33:20,640 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: is their variety in sizes among the workers. They vary

589
00:33:24,960 --> 00:33:28,800
Speaker 1: in size more than workers in any other ant colony.

590
00:33:29,040 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: So this is where it gets interesting in a sort

591
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: of war game point of view manner, because essentially we're

592
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: getting into different unit types here. So if you're fielding droids,

593
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:46,080
Speaker 1: for instance, on on on in a battle, yeah, we're

594
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: doing clone wars here. You're not. You're not just busting

595
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: out a ton of standard B one battle droids, right,

596
00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: you're also busting out B two super heavy battle droids

597
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: or heavy weapon uh droid ecka droidka um roly poly guy.

598
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:03,239
Speaker 1: If you're playing something like Warhammer, forty thousand. It's not

599
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:06,880
Speaker 1: just space marines. You're also busting out specialized assault marines

600
00:34:07,000 --> 00:34:10,080
Speaker 1: or heavy terminators, that sort of thing. And so Moffatt

601
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: points out that the marauders deploy smaller miners, uh that's

602
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:17,680
Speaker 1: what we call them, or foot soldiers, to the front

603
00:34:17,680 --> 00:34:21,439
Speaker 1: line and there these are just weak and hopeless, uh

604
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: individuals against adversaries. But there are tons of them, so

605
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:29,040
Speaker 1: they work as a kind of barricade. They bogged down

606
00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 1: the enemy long enough for larger ants to move in

607
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,640
Speaker 1: the media's and the majors. So again, same species, same

608
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,960
Speaker 1: essentially um variety of this ant, but it's like a

609
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:45,120
Speaker 1: it's a different cast, radically different body forms. Yeah, some

610
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,440
Speaker 1: of these individuals print the majors compared to the miners.

611
00:34:49,760 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: They are five hundred times as heavy as the smaller version.

612
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: So these are real bruisers, I mean, these are these

613
00:34:56,760 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: are monsters. Uh. My initial impulse would be to compare

614
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,960
Speaker 1: these like strictly to larger um you know, bruiser heavy

615
00:35:05,000 --> 00:35:08,359
Speaker 1: class fighters and fantasy armies, like I'm thinking about some

616
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: of the big specialized trolls and the armies of Mordor.

617
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: But but then I was thinking about it. I was

618
00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: like looking at the size deferential here, and Okay, let's

619
00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: assume that an orc, or say a stormtrooper, uh is

620
00:35:21,719 --> 00:35:24,719
Speaker 1: roughly the average weight of a human. If we're to

621
00:35:24,840 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: multiply that by five hundred, you're talking thirty four tons.

622
00:35:29,680 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: So in the real world, that's essentially the difference between

623
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,240
Speaker 1: a human and a humpback whale. Okay, so that's crazy.

624
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: Even even the troll would not really capture the size

625
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: difference appropriately. Yeah, Like I ended up going down a

626
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:46,240
Speaker 1: rabbit hole trying to figure out how heavy different fantasy

627
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: and sci fi army vehicles and units were. And it's

628
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:53,920
Speaker 1: best I can tell based on some fan estimates. You

629
00:35:54,000 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 1: might draw a comparison here between a single Imperial stormtrooper

630
00:35:58,080 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: and one of those two legged a t ST walkers.

631
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:05,799
Speaker 1: That would be the difference between a Marauder minor aunt

632
00:36:05,920 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 1: and a Marauder major aunt. This is what Mafata writes.

633
00:36:09,680 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: Quote the miners sacrifices on the front. Ryans assure a

634
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:17,240
Speaker 1: low mortality for the media's and the majors, which require

635
00:36:17,280 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 1: far more resources for the colony to raise and men maintain.

636
00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:23,960
Speaker 1: Putting the easily replaced fighters at greatest risk is a

637
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:28,040
Speaker 1: time honored battle technique. So, in other words, stormtroopers are

638
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: notoriously bad shots, and they are apparently easily replaced, But

639
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:35,359
Speaker 1: you'r a T S T S. Those are far more precious. Yeah,

640
00:36:35,400 --> 00:36:38,919
Speaker 1: that will they cost more to make? Yeah. Mafata also

641
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:41,759
Speaker 1: points out that the marauders tactics here line up with

642
00:36:41,800 --> 00:36:45,440
Speaker 1: the example one season armies throughout history the use of

643
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 1: conscripted farmers and laborers alongside elite professional soldiers, with the

644
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 1: common soldiers absorbing the worst of it while the elite

645
00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 1: units are protected and move in at strategic intervals. He

646
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,239
Speaker 1: also points out that marauders use what is known in

647
00:37:00,320 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 1: military strategy as defeat in detail tactics, defeating an enemy

648
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,080
Speaker 1: unit by unit, rather than engaging in enemy's full strength. Now,

649
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: marauder ants also battle their own kind, pitting colony against colony,

650
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,960
Speaker 1: and in these contests the majors and the media's also

651
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: hang back and let the miners do most of the fighting,

652
00:37:20,280 --> 00:37:23,080
Speaker 1: tearing each other apart, and in contests that tend to

653
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: be even more brutal than the interspecies conflicts that also

654
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:30,240
Speaker 1: take place. I'm gonna get to some of the logic

655
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,000
Speaker 1: behind the differences in strategy here in just a minute.

656
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,720
Speaker 1: By the way, yeah, because Moffatt refers to the work

657
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 1: of University of Bristol's Nigel Franks, who found that the

658
00:37:39,520 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: tactics of these ants in particular is consistent with Lanchester's

659
00:37:43,000 --> 00:37:46,399
Speaker 1: square law, an equation developed in World War One by

660
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: engineer Frederick Lanchester, who also devised Lanchester's linear law, which

661
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: will also touch based on here. Yeah, I keep wanting

662
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: to say, lanister, so don't let me say that. Keep

663
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:01,880
Speaker 1: coming back to the fantasy warfare now. So, Lanchester's laws

664
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: are a set of mathematical models trying to explain outcomes

665
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: in battle based on various kinds of initial force disparities. Generally,

666
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:17,040
Speaker 1: the main disparities are going to be individual unit effectiveness,

667
00:38:17,080 --> 00:38:19,839
Speaker 1: so like how much damage each unit can do, and

668
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:24,399
Speaker 1: then also the numbers of combatants on either side. Lanchester's

669
00:38:24,440 --> 00:38:28,400
Speaker 1: square law in particular shows that in some types of combat.

670
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,680
Speaker 1: This is not all conflicts, but in some types of combat,

671
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:36,000
Speaker 1: for example shooting wars involving masses of soldiers armed with

672
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: rifles that can aim in any direction. In these types

673
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:44,719
Speaker 1: of combat, there are ways of organizing confrontations majorly to

674
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:48,160
Speaker 1: your advantage. Just just based on the numbers of forces

675
00:38:48,200 --> 00:38:51,640
Speaker 1: and how they're grouped specifically, that the main takeaway is

676
00:38:52,000 --> 00:38:55,880
Speaker 1: don't split your forces. Um So to illustrate this, you

677
00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: can imagine, say you've got battle droids in in Star Wars,

678
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: and say maybe one side has a hundred battle droids

679
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,240
Speaker 1: and the other side has exactly a hundred battle droids

680
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:08,400
Speaker 1: as well. If you imagine each of the battle droids

681
00:39:08,440 --> 00:39:11,759
Speaker 1: can shoot its blaster one time every second, and each

682
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:15,879
Speaker 1: shot has a chance of destroying its target, you can

683
00:39:16,000 --> 00:39:18,760
Speaker 1: work out that after one second of battle, both forces

684
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:23,840
Speaker 1: will be reduced equally by about maybe after another second, etcetera.

685
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 1: And it just goes on as the two sides decreased

686
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: by attrition at roughly the same rate, until both armies

687
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: are mostly are fully vanquished at around the same time,

688
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:36,799
Speaker 1: unless for some reason one side gets an advantage early on.

689
00:39:37,680 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: But that kind of process does not scale in a

690
00:39:40,560 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 1: linear way. So if you have say a hundred droids

691
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:47,480
Speaker 1: versus an opponents at general grievous is your opposing army

692
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,000
Speaker 1: and he's just got fifty droids, you you probably can

693
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,279
Speaker 1: assume that the larger force will win, but you might

694
00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 1: not understand how much of an advantage the larger force has.

695
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: So if if you have the know the same kind

696
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:04,240
Speaker 1: of thing working, after the first second, your hundred droids

697
00:40:04,239 --> 00:40:08,720
Speaker 1: will probably have destroyed roughly half of your opponent's fifty droids,

698
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 1: but they really will not have destroyed many of yours

699
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,600
Speaker 1: at all, maybe only like twelve or so. And as

700
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:18,640
Speaker 1: each second of battle goes on, you reduce their fighting

701
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,480
Speaker 1: effectiveness more and more, until what you're left with in

702
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:26,799
Speaker 1: the end is very little casualties to the larger army

703
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:30,040
Speaker 1: and total decimation of the smaller one. And so this shows,

704
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:31,719
Speaker 1: for example, that if you have a force of a

705
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: hundred battle droids, it would be much easier for that

706
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: those one hundred battle droids to win two consecutive battles

707
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: against fifty battle droids than to win one single battle

708
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:46,320
Speaker 1: against a force of one hundred. And this is exactly

709
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:50,239
Speaker 1: why divide and conquer is such an important principle of warfare.

710
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 1: If you break your enemy up into smaller groupings with

711
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,439
Speaker 1: these certain types of combat, your advantage over them does

712
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 1: not increase linearly, it multiplied by the square uh. In fact,

713
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: if you choose your battles wisely, you can even use

714
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: this to allow a smaller force to beat a bigger one.

715
00:41:08,120 --> 00:41:10,440
Speaker 1: So if you've got a hundred battle droids, general Grievas

716
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:14,440
Speaker 1: has two hundred, you could still potentially beat him overall

717
00:41:14,480 --> 00:41:18,360
Speaker 1: by keeping your forces together and peeling off small segments

718
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: of like ten or twenty at a time to face sequentially,

719
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:25,560
Speaker 1: with negligible losses to your own forces each time. So

720
00:41:25,960 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 1: this is again where we come back to defeat in

721
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:32,480
Speaker 1: detail exactly right. So, in mathematical terms, what Lanchester predicted

722
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: was that in these certain types of scenarios, uh, the

723
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:38,760
Speaker 1: strength of a group on the battlefield is the product

724
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: of two things. The effectiveness of each fighting unit not

725
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: times the number of units, but times the square of

726
00:41:46,920 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: the number of units. And that's why it's known as

727
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: the square law. And it tells you that for certain

728
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:57,040
Speaker 1: types of combat, sheer numbers can easily overwhelm differences in

729
00:41:57,080 --> 00:42:01,919
Speaker 1: the effectiveness of individual fighting units. And it's interesting how

730
00:42:01,960 --> 00:42:05,240
Speaker 1: this tends to go against what seems to be people's

731
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 1: desire to understand like dramatic violent conflict in narratives like

732
00:42:12,000 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: in you know, epic poetry and action movies and all that,

733
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: where it seems like what people or at least what

734
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:21,120
Speaker 1: authors think people want to see. Uh is the idea

735
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:24,399
Speaker 1: that a single highly effective combatant you know, you're John

736
00:42:24,440 --> 00:42:29,560
Speaker 1: Wick or whoever, can overcome many less effective enemies ganging

737
00:42:29,640 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: up on them. And for many types of combat, this

738
00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:35,920
Speaker 1: is not how real fighting actually works. Numbers are significantly

739
00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:39,720
Speaker 1: more important than skills, Like better to have five hundred

740
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 1: off brand discount battle droids than fifty elite i G units. Yeah, yeah,

741
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: it it. It certainly does run run counter to our

742
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:51,439
Speaker 1: our our epic storytelling. Yeah, where it's like a one

743
00:42:51,640 --> 00:42:55,200
Speaker 1: rag tag group of talented individuals can can can turn

744
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:59,720
Speaker 1: the tide of battle against against the faceless hord. Yeah yeah.

745
00:42:59,760 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 1: And we should not again that the square law is

746
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: not supposed to apply to all types of combat. For example,

747
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:09,040
Speaker 1: in situations where combatants have to face one another in

748
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:12,640
Speaker 1: one on one duels, one at a time, they're the

749
00:43:12,680 --> 00:43:16,239
Speaker 1: advantages of superior numbers are reduced to something closer to

750
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 1: a pure linear function, and the individual effectiveness of of

751
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 1: each unit becomes a lot more relevant. And so the

752
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:25,400
Speaker 1: way this works out in the real world is that,

753
00:43:25,480 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: like in situations where your forces do not have numerical superiority,

754
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,520
Speaker 1: military leaders who are conscious of these issues will try

755
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: to engineer battle conditions to avoid square law scenarios and

756
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:41,719
Speaker 1: enforced linear law scenarios instead. One example would be like

757
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: using natural terrain or fortifications to create choke points where

758
00:43:47,120 --> 00:43:50,719
Speaker 1: the majority of the enemy forces are held back from

759
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:53,919
Speaker 1: the action. That can't all fight you at once, the

760
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 1: number of them that can fight you at the same

761
00:43:56,040 --> 00:43:59,840
Speaker 1: time is limited by topography, and thus the battle becomes

762
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 1: it starts to resemble something more like a series of

763
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 1: sequential duels instead of a simultaneous war of all against all.

764
00:44:07,440 --> 00:44:10,000
Speaker 1: And of course examples of this in history. Or you

765
00:44:10,000 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: know the way the thing about the way castles are constructed,

766
00:44:12,239 --> 00:44:17,680
Speaker 1: narrow passageways, uh, you know, natural ravines, bridges, gates, a

767
00:44:17,760 --> 00:44:21,320
Speaker 1: spiral staircase in the castle tower. These tend to reduce

768
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 1: the salience of the square law advantage and help you out,

769
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 1: especially if you've got a smaller number of more effective fighters. So,

770
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:31,279
Speaker 1: to bring this back to ants, the question here is

771
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,240
Speaker 1: which of these models is better at predicting the outcomes

772
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:37,399
Speaker 1: of ant wars. Is it the linear model where there's

773
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: this direct linear relationship between the size of forces and

774
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,080
Speaker 1: the outcome, or is it the square model where the

775
00:44:43,160 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: larger numbers of concentrated forces just easily overwhelm other concerns

776
00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:51,759
Speaker 1: like the like individual fighting unit effectiveness. UH. There was

777
00:44:51,800 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: a paper that was published in the nineteen nineties and

778
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: the journal Animal Behavior. This was in nine by Mary E. A.

779
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,600
Speaker 1: White how House in Klaus Jaffa called ant Wars Combat

780
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:07,080
Speaker 1: Strategies Territory and Nest Defense in the leaf cutting ant

781
00:45:07,160 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 1: Atta leave Agatta And according to their research, they found

782
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:14,360
Speaker 1: quote the leaf cutting ant atta leave Agata responded to

783
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 1: a simulated vertebrate threat by recruiting many soldiers, and the

784
00:45:18,840 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 1: soldiers would be a special special fighters large workers, but

785
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:27,719
Speaker 1: responded to con specific and interspecific ant threats by recruiting

786
00:45:27,800 --> 00:45:32,359
Speaker 1: mainly small ants. So the vertebrate attack here was simulated

787
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:34,839
Speaker 1: pretty much by poking a stick and you know, as

788
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: they poke a stick into the entrance of the colony

789
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:40,120
Speaker 1: nest and then shake it for twenty seconds. And this

790
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,160
Speaker 1: was meant to mimic the mechanical disturbance that would be

791
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: caused by an ants by the ant's main predator, the armadillo.

792
00:45:47,280 --> 00:45:49,520
Speaker 1: In these attacks, what the ants would tend to do

793
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:52,360
Speaker 1: is they would bring more of their elite fighters to

794
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:56,320
Speaker 1: defend the nest, So in this situation it appears evolution

795
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,279
Speaker 1: maybe favoring the linear reasoning in this case. Meanwhile, when

796
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: the ants are attacked by other ants, they tended to

797
00:46:04,000 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: respond instead with overwhelming numbers of less dedicated fighters. So

798
00:46:08,719 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 1: a threat from arrival ant colony seems to have been

799
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:15,239
Speaker 1: solved by natural selection to select for behaviors motivated by

800
00:46:15,239 --> 00:46:19,799
Speaker 1: the square law. Along these lines, Mofa also points out

801
00:46:19,840 --> 00:46:23,279
Speaker 1: the quote a fighter's value to its colony bears on

802
00:46:23,320 --> 00:46:26,880
Speaker 1: the risks the ant takes. The more expendable she is,

803
00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 1: the more likely she is to end up in harm's way.

804
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: As such marauder ants, he writes, they guard their foraging

805
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:38,440
Speaker 1: trails with old and or maimed workers and in fire ants,

806
00:46:38,440 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: it's been observed that the old stay and fight, while

807
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 1: the very young runaway and and firemants more in their

808
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: prime will actually uh fake their own deaths. Wow, we'll

809
00:46:48,719 --> 00:46:51,760
Speaker 1: fake their own deaths. I mean, this is again something

810
00:46:51,800 --> 00:46:54,239
Speaker 1: that makes more sense if you think about the ant

811
00:46:54,280 --> 00:46:57,760
Speaker 1: colony as a single superorganism. It's like it's it's putting

812
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:02,279
Speaker 1: the the already day imaged or less effective parts of

813
00:47:02,360 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: itself out in front to absorb the brunt of the

814
00:47:05,600 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: of the violence. Yeah, alright, So at this point you're

815
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,600
Speaker 1: you're you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, they're out of time,

816
00:47:11,680 --> 00:47:13,759
Speaker 1: and you you would be right, just as the Aunt

817
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: War is heating up. Uh, we're gonna have to close

818
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,880
Speaker 1: out this episode, but fear not, we're gonna be back

819
00:47:20,080 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: with a third ant War episode that will more or

820
00:47:23,440 --> 00:47:26,439
Speaker 1: less round everything out. Though a word of warning, if

821
00:47:26,480 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 1: I am, if I'm looking at the schedule correctly, there

822
00:47:29,239 --> 00:47:33,319
Speaker 1: will be another episode that will publish before the third

823
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: ant War episode publishes, So just bear with us. The

824
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 1: third ant War installment is on its way in the meantime.

825
00:47:40,400 --> 00:47:42,080
Speaker 1: If you like to check out other episodes of Stuff

826
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, you can find us anywhere you

827
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:46,759
Speaker 1: get your podcast and wherever that happens to be. Just

828
00:47:46,840 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: make sure you rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks as

829
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:53,560
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If

830
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:54,960
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with

831
00:47:55,040 --> 00:47:57,319
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a

832
00:47:57,360 --> 00:47:59,400
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you

833
00:47:59,400 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 1: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your

834
00:48:02,480 --> 00:48:12,840
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production

835
00:48:12,920 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio for more podcasts for my heart Radio,

836
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,520
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever

837
00:48:18,560 --> 00:48:31,799
Speaker 1: you listening to your favorite shows.