WEBVTT - Ant Wars: Episode II - The Antmire Strikes Back 0:00:01.200 --> 0:00:04.520 Deliver thyself as a row from the hand of the hunter, 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:07.520 and as a bird from the hand of the fowler. 0:00:08.000 --> 0:00:11.880 Go to the ant thou sluggard, consider her ways and 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:17.080 be wise, which, having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:20.000 her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in 0:00:20.079 --> 0:00:27.360 the harvest. Welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind production 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:36.320 of My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:38.919 Blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:39.000 --> 0:00:41.519 Joe McCormick. And that was a reading from the King 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:44.720 James translation of the Bible. It's from the Book of Proverbs, 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.720 chapter six. Uh. And I was looking right before we started. 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:51.720 I was like, oh, let me check my scholarly Oxford 0:00:51.760 --> 0:00:54.080 Annotated edition to the Bible to see if it's got 0:00:54.240 --> 0:00:58.120 any insights on how the author of this passage knew 0:00:58.240 --> 0:01:01.120 that all of the worker ants in the colony were female. 0:01:01.480 --> 0:01:03.920 And no, it just says this passage appeals to the 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:11.600 natural world. That yeah, because I had questions about this one. 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.520 I was not familiar with this passage. We just kind 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:16.160 of we're looking for for fun things to read at 0:01:16.200 --> 0:01:19.600 the at the top of our our second ant War episode, 0:01:20.000 --> 0:01:22.039 and I was like, oh, I wonder what the what 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:24.959 what the old King James version had to say about ants? 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.839 And here we are a verse that at once seems 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:32.679 to to get the gender of the vast majority of 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:37.000 an aunt colony correct and also, uh, doesn't get hung 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.040 up on the idea of a central ruler like in 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:42.880 In a couple of ways, this is a very um 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:47.760 accurate reading of ant civilization. You know, I didn't even 0:01:47.800 --> 0:01:49.720 think about it, but I'm sure that means this is 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:52.560 one of those verses that's been employed by a Christian 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:55.720 apologist to suggest the inherancy of the Bible, right because 0:01:55.720 --> 0:01:58.480 it But but I gotta say this versus is pretty 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:02.280 dead on right. Uh. There is no guide overseer or ruler. 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:05.480 It's just the swarm intelligence that emerges from the ants 0:02:05.520 --> 0:02:08.919 evolved instinct. And uh, and it's true the ants are 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.440 not lazy, like I think that's the point of the passage. 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.800 It's like, look, the ant doesn't wait around trying, you know, 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.200 wait around to be told what to do. It just 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:19.920 knows what to do and does it right. And uh. 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:22.400 Of course, then there's this bit about the gathering of 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:24.839 food and the storing of food, which, depending on which 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:28.680 species you're looking at is also really accurate. Of course, 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.480 as we continue to look at examples of of ant 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:35.120 civilization and ant warfare, we're gonna get into some examples 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:39.640 that they are a bit more barbaric and uh ravaging. 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.799 I guess yeah. For a biblical parallels, some of these 0:02:42.800 --> 0:02:45.560 ants stories are going to be closer to the Conquest 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:49.200 of Canaan than the Wisdom of Proverbs. But this is 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.400 funny because it also brings up the idea of you know, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:55.320 in the last episode we were talking about obviously, ancient 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.400 people had been looking at ants and trying to understand 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:01.720 their behavior long before there was a unified scientific study. 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:05.280 You know, a field known as entomology and the comparison 0:03:05.360 --> 0:03:08.800 to military forces and armies has been there since ancient times. 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.880 But I think this is definitely not the only case 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:16.080 where people read spiritual significance into ant behavior. No, yeah, 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:18.400 I was. I was reading about this, and ants have 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:21.040 a sacred role in a number of different religions. In 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.440 some African traditions, they are considered messengers of the gods, 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:29.600 and throughout India you'll find various customs that involve protecting 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:34.720 antlines and ant hills. Even uh leaving out food for 0:03:34.800 --> 0:03:39.480 the ant hills, or decorating them in some slight fashion, 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:42.240 like you know, the sprinkling of of you know, some 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.120 sort of colored or that sort of thing. And uh, 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:49.000 and likewise it's considered heinous to disturb an ant hill especially. 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:52.440 I was reading about all this in a book titled 0:03:52.440 --> 0:03:56.800 The Sacred Animals of India by Nandita Krishna, which is 0:03:56.840 --> 0:03:59.480 an excellent little book from Penguin Press. You can pick 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:01.920 it up most most places. I think I picked it 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.040 up at a yoga studio once while I was waiting 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:06.600 waiting for my wife to get her shoes on, and 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:08.440 I'm like, oh, what's this a book about animals? I 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.520 started leaving through it, and it's just animal by animal, uh, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.040 you know, some some some fascinating facts about how it 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.240 ties into Hindu traditions. But then also sometimes there's a 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.040 little science as well, so like there's a bit about 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:23.360 the ant and they also touch on some of the 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:26.120 basic facts about ants and their role in ecology that 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:28.960 we've been discussing here. But but in this book, the 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.640 author describes a couple of cool details. First of all, 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:36.799 a tale in which in Indra desires a glorious palace. 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:40.080 So Vishnu comes to him and points out a line 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:43.000 of ants in the dirt and tells him that each 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.880 and every one of them is an indra that rose 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.919 to the highest level of existence and then fell down 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.400 again via pride. So there's a, you know, this recurring 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.240 idea that ants, like all these other animals, are part 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.360 of the cycle of rebirth. The author also mentions that 0:04:59.600 --> 0:05:03.000 of al Niki, the author of the Ramayana, emerged from 0:05:03.040 --> 0:05:07.120 an ant hill or a valmika after ten years of meditation. 0:05:07.279 --> 0:05:10.560 So in this case, the the author um of the 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:13.280 Hindu epic ends up taking on the name of the 0:05:13.320 --> 0:05:17.120 ant hill as part of their new emerged identity. That's 0:05:17.160 --> 0:05:21.160 interesting and counterintuitive because it imagines the ant hill as 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:25.440 a place that would be appropriate for meditation, solitude, you know, 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:29.160 like quiet contemplation, Whereas when I think of an ant hill, 0:05:29.200 --> 0:05:31.279 I would think of the exact opposite, something that is 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:35.720 certainly organized from from the ant's own genetic point of view, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:39.200 but us looking down at it, it's so chaotic and frenzied. 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.000 It seems like it would be impossible to focus. Yeah, 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:43.680 but then I guess you could also look at it 0:05:43.720 --> 0:05:46.520 as a place of just pure order or two to 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:48.640 really get into I guess some more of a you know, 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.000 a topic that's important in Hindu epics, A place of 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:56.480 pure duty, like there's just there's you know, absolute duty, 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:00.720 UH youth, social duty to the colony, and there's no 0:06:00.880 --> 0:06:05.640 there's no room for aunt despair or aunt ambition. You know, 0:06:05.520 --> 0:06:07.839 you're not going to be pulled in either of those directions. 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:10.880 It's just pure absolute duty. So really it's it's an 0:06:10.920 --> 0:06:14.760 ideal place to fall um if you, you know, you 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:18.800 achieve some demigotic state of pride and UH and then 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:20.799 have to you know, fall back down to a lower 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:22.720 life form and then work your way back up an 0:06:22.760 --> 0:06:24.920 it's a good place to start, kind of a form 0:06:24.960 --> 0:06:28.839 of contrapostito, right, like the idea that the divine punishment 0:06:29.000 --> 0:06:32.440 or not necessarily punishment either, but the the divine justice 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:36.240 somehow fits the UH fits the original offense that brought 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.839 it on. Yeah, so if you're joining us in this episode, 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.840 you've probably figured out that we're talking about aunts and UH. 0:06:43.960 --> 0:06:47.200 And this is indeed the second in our Aunt Wars 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:51.320 UH series. So if you didn't listen to the last episode, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:54.640 we would recommend you go back and give it a listen. 0:06:54.760 --> 0:06:58.279 We discussed the empire, the ants, and and very broadly 0:06:58.320 --> 0:07:02.560 the endless wars that form the boundaries of their individual kingdoms. 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:04.680 I want to go back again to the writings of 0:07:04.680 --> 0:07:08.520 Mark W. Moffatt Uh, and this is from that Scientific 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:12.760 American article that I previously mentioned that's also hosted on 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:18.200 his website at dor bugs dot com. He writes, quote, 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.520 in Ghana, I witnessed aceeeving carpet of workers of the 0:07:21.640 --> 0:07:26.840 army ants species dorilyss Nigricans searching together across an area 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:31.880 hundred feet wide. These African army ants, which in species 0:07:31.880 --> 0:07:35.120 such as de Nigricans that move and broad swaths, are 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.480 called driver ants, slice the flesh off their enemy or 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:41.720 quarry with blade like jaws, and can make short work 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:46.200 of victims thousands of times their size, although vertebrate creatures 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.760 can usually outrun ants. In Gabon, I once saw an 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.480 antelope caught in a snare, eaten alive by a colony 0:07:53.480 --> 0:07:56.480 of driver ants. That highlights something that I was planning 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:58.560 on talking about in just a little bit. When we 0:07:58.560 --> 0:08:01.200 get to one particular or species of army end that 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:04.040 I was finding really fascinating. But uh, but I guess 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:06.600 we can address it now. So, you know the Kingdom 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:09.520 of the Crystal Skull vision, which goes back to earlier 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:12.400 movies and stuff where the the army ants essentially are 0:08:12.520 --> 0:08:16.320 terrestrial movie piranha. You know, you've got the You've got 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.840 the Hollywood acid that that strips the human to the 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.080 bone in in seconds. You've got the Hollywood piranha that 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:24.160 stripped the human to the bone in seconds. I don't 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.960 know if either of those are really very accurately reflective 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:29.400 of stuff that happens in the real world. And then 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.760 the ants are the next thing, the Hollywood army ants 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:36.440 that just sterilize your skeleton. Uh, that that doesn't seem 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.599 to be something that happens in reality. Certainly not. I 0:08:39.640 --> 0:08:43.199 would say with a with a large animal that can move, 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.600 a lot of army ants are are going to be 0:08:45.679 --> 0:08:52.160 absolutely apocalyptic in their implications for smaller animals, for insects, arachnids, centipedes, 0:08:52.200 --> 0:08:55.520 and even small vertebrates like little frogs and snakes and stuff. 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:59.200 But larger animals they don't actually represent a threat like that, 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:01.440 like you can ease only get away from them. The 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:05.120 only case I would imagine where army ants might represent 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.800 a real threat to larger animals would be if you 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.120 are totally immobilized, right, so if you're caught in a snare, 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:14.080 buried up to your neck in the sand, that sort 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.040 of thing. Right, And even then I don't know if 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:19.040 they would necessarily kill you, because they're they're looking for 0:09:19.120 --> 0:09:21.719 their main prey species, which are going to be all 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.000 kinds of invertebrates. Yeah, they're probably going after something like 0:09:25.120 --> 0:09:29.680 termites or other ants. Uh. Heads sticking out of the 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:33.160 ground not really on the menu usually, But but I 0:09:33.200 --> 0:09:35.680 wouldn't want to try it. I'm not saying necessarily safe. 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.600 That could be the next big Hollywood magician act though, 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:41.840 right David Blaine Bury's I mean, I'd be surprised if 0:09:41.840 --> 0:09:44.120 he hasn't done it already. Well, no, it's the next 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:46.120 big confidence game, you know. So they got to walk 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:50.280 across the hot coals. That's like the confidence building exercise. 0:09:50.360 --> 0:09:53.080 But but the next stage is the bury yourself up 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:56.040 to the neck and let the army ants come. Well, 0:09:56.160 --> 0:09:58.520 another a little piece of health cleaning from the last 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.080 episode I want to throw in here. In the last episode, 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:05.040 I briefly mentioned pheromones as being essential to aunt communication. 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.400 And I don't want to gloss over this too much 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.840 because I imagine many of you have have seen videos 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:16.160 of pheromonal demonstrations, uh, you know, the the the ant Overlord. EO. 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:19.000 Wilson himself does this at times in which a pheromone 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.480 is painted like a paintbrush or a qutap or something 0:10:22.800 --> 0:10:25.880 across the surface and then ants follow it and is 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.360 informative as well as a demonstration like this can be. 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:30.800 It don't take it to mean that there's just there's 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:34.440 a real blunt simplicity to it. As as Wilson himself stresses, 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.440 there is a pheromonal language for ants. Uh. Any given 0:10:38.480 --> 0:10:42.200 ant species uses a whole palide of pheromones and chemical 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:46.400 signals to communicate. Yeah, it can be very complex, though 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.680 there are also very simple ways to see it in 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:52.720 action and like creating the pheromone trails that are like. EO. 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.400 Wilson was involved in research that discovered one of the 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:59.720 main glands in the ants gaster that deposits of pheromone 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:02.760 that creates the trail leading to food. And generally if 0:11:02.800 --> 0:11:04.880 you deposit this pheromone, as you will see, you know, 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:07.080 humans can extract it and put it in the bottle, 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:09.120 like you're saying. To these demonstrations where you just put 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.800 a line of it down on a table and suddenly 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:14.640 the ants form up and follow the line. Those can 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.240 be striking direct demonstrations, even though the full web of 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.199 pheromonal interactions can be much more complex. And you can 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:25.640 also easily do this yourself, even without um the extraction 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.040 of that kind of pheromone, simply by if you've ever 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.600 tried dragging your finger across an ant trail where like 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.520 you know, if you can smudge the chemicals away and 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.720 maybe disrupt it with some of the oils from your 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.080 own finger, suddenly the movement of the ants becomes chaotic. 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:46.160 It's all confused because the deposition of chemicals that has 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.040 created this trail has been broken. I've been I've been 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:52.240 noticing these ant trail ant trails a lot more on 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.760 my walks recently. Uh, my family and I will go 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:58.120 out to some various nature walking by trails in the 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:01.120 area that they're not that populated it and some of 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:04.040 them have lee you know, slabs of concrete, and they'll 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:07.520 be these little essentially a little trenches that stretch across 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:12.079 them where one slab meets the other, and invariably those 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:14.559 are the trenches through which the ants moved, not over 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:16.760 the top where they're going to potentially get smashed by 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:20.360 a by bicycle tires are stepped on more easily. No, 0:12:20.520 --> 0:12:23.640 they're in the trenches, moving across from one side to 0:12:23.720 --> 0:12:27.080 the other. It almost makes me wonder if we've unintentionally 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.040 created little bridges or tunnels for the ants, the same 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:33.520 way that on Christmas Island they have to create these 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.079 crab bridges and tunnels for crabs to let their migration 0:12:37.240 --> 0:12:39.800 get across the roads. Yeah, it does seem like that, 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:45.640 like accidental um pro ant design. Uh. Now, now, speaking 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:47.800 of the Oh Wilson, I want to point out to 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:49.959 everybody we've talked about Io Wilson on the show before, 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.400 an EO. Wilson has of course authored a number of books, uh, 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:56.320 many of which are are ideal for a general audience. 0:12:56.840 --> 0:12:58.720 But if you want to watch a documentary about them, 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.200 there is a wonderful PBO documentary that came out several 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:05.800 years ago titled EO. Wilson of Ants and NN. You 0:13:05.800 --> 0:13:08.880 can probably get it wherever you stream PBS content. I 0:13:08.920 --> 0:13:10.440 know that at least here in the United States. You 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:13.640 can get it on Prime. It's really good. Yeah, it's 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:15.959 so I started watching it. I haven't finished yet. I 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.400 watched the first half and it's just a delight. There's 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.480 a great moment where so EO. Wilson, you know, one 0:13:21.520 --> 0:13:25.079 of the world authorities on ants, revolutionary biologist for the 0:13:25.160 --> 0:13:28.800 world of youth social insects, and he says at one point, 0:13:28.840 --> 0:13:31.320 he says, the question people want to know the answer 0:13:31.320 --> 0:13:34.160 to most often about ants is what do I do 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:37.840 about the ones in my kitchen? And then he says, uh, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.760 and here's what I tell them. You get a little 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:43.640 piece of a cookie and you put it down near 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:49.880 the ants, and then you watch what they do. I 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.040 love that answer because, on one hand, it feels like 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:54.360 maybe he's trying to teach us something like, Oh, he's 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:56.280 trying to teach me a lesson about why the answer 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:58.520 there to begin with, you know, I need to watch 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:00.079 I need to make sure my kitchen is clean, and 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:02.200 I mean to make sure there's no there's no food product, 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:04.400 or I need to think about why they've invaded my kitchen. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.840 But on the other hand, it seems just as likely 0:14:06.880 --> 0:14:09.080 that he's saying, you're not going to do anything about 0:14:09.120 --> 0:14:11.840 these ants. You're going to enjoy them. You're going to 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.280 you're going to feed them and watch how they work. 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:19.720 There there's a beautiful stoicism and enjoy in the way 0:14:19.720 --> 0:14:23.360 that he observes ants even as they are, you know, 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.400 doing things that most people would regard as an offense 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:28.880 or an irritation. You know, we talked several times now 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:31.720 about like the scene where he's just letting all the 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.960 fire ants sting his hand and he's watching it with 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.080 with such fascination and talking about what's going on is 0:14:39.120 --> 0:14:42.560 they're all attacking his skin at the same time, and 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.040 uh and then yeah, and this is basically the same 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.880 attitude with the kitchen instead of your hand. It's like, no, 0:14:48.280 --> 0:14:52.080 don't get upset, just take pleasure in watching nature work. 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.440 Oh and by the way, Wilson has a new book 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:58.680 on ants coming out this fall. I noticed called Tails 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:01.280 from the Ant World. All right, on that note, we're 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:03.320 gonna take one quick break, but we'll be right back 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:06.960 and we'll return to the world of the ants and 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:14.040 the wars that they rage. Alright, we're back. One of 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:16.840 the other sources that I was using in reading about 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.520 ants for these episodes is the excellent book Animal Weapons 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.560 by Douglas j Emlin, and in it the author has 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.160 has a whole bit where he's describing basically, the whole 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:30.720 book has to do with with bioweapons and the evolution 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:34.280 of bioweapons and organisms and then comparing them to human warfare. 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:37.240 But there's a whole bit where he's talking about the 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:41.160 quote giant jaws and thick distended heads of the army, 0:15:41.200 --> 0:15:44.560 ants that allow them in mass to topple so many opponents, 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:47.520 And he shares a fun bit of experience that really 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:51.200 underlies just how you know, powerful the design is on 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:56.280 these little guys, uh, little gals rather um. Basically, he 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.320 was out doing field of some field experiments in Belize 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:02.920 and he accidentally sliced his thumb with a machete, and 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.720 without anything else to stitch at the wound, this is 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:07.280 what they did. First of all, they did have some 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.200 rum on them, so they stailized the wound with rum. 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:14.680 But then they suitured the wound with ants. They simply 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:18.480 placed the ants live ants allow along the line of 0:16:18.520 --> 0:16:21.560 the cut while someone held the cut together and allowed 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.920 their little jaws to snap into place. And then they 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:27.720 tore the body away from the head and the heads, 0:16:27.880 --> 0:16:30.520 of which they only required five or six, kept their 0:16:30.600 --> 0:16:34.720 jaws latch tight and this held the wound together and 0:16:34.760 --> 0:16:37.840 allowed them to eventually get proper medical attention for the cut. 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.560 I would say, uh, if I just heard this story 0:16:41.600 --> 0:16:44.440 in isolation, I would be inclined to doubt it. It 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.000 seems so hard to believe that. I mean, obviously I 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:52.320 don't think Emland's lying about this, But that's just that's amazing. Yeah, 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:55.440 it's I mean, this is it's also a great illustration 0:16:55.440 --> 0:16:59.760 of like of a scientist, you know, thinking about about 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.400 the how to solve a problem. I would never have thought, oh, 0:17:02.480 --> 0:17:04.240 I'm cut. I really need to let's get some ants 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.800 attached to this wound. But but it's it's also just 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:09.840 a wonderful um uh, you know the description of just 0:17:09.920 --> 0:17:14.600 how powerful these little jaws are. Now army and marauder 0:17:14.640 --> 0:17:18.720 ants wage their war for food, uh and resources. They 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:21.720 they will battle other forces for control of food resources 0:17:21.800 --> 0:17:24.520 and will also invade other ants societies in order to 0:17:24.760 --> 0:17:28.640 claim their larva and their pupa as food. Yeah. And 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.480 these are some of the most striking types of ants 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:33.560 that we see. I mean, you know, we're familiar with 0:17:33.600 --> 0:17:36.560 the ant warfare that we've discussed before, say between uh 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.679 different types of fire ants, even here in the in 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.679 the southern United States. But seeing ants that forage on 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.840 the scale and with the tenacity of army answer marauder 0:17:45.840 --> 0:17:48.880 ants is is a different kind of thing. This might 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:51.840 be a good place to pause and appreciate the marvel 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:54.200 of this one species of army ant that I've been 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:56.880 reading into a lot. Uh. And this is the species 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.359 known as eston Bercelli i. UH. There are a lot 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:03.280 of actually different species event that are commonly referred to 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.840 as army ants, but seton Bricellii is I think the 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.159 one species that people are most often talking about with 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.400 that general title. They're very charismatic, well observed and distributed species. 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:17.919 They live in the humid equatorial regions of Central and 0:18:17.960 --> 0:18:21.240 South America, especially in the Amazon rainforest, but with the 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:25.160 range extending up through Mexico and down south of Brazil 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:30.120 into Argentina. Uh. But they're primarily in the equatorial rainforests, 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:35.240 and these ants will form colonies of several hundred thousand 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:41.040 adults at a time with this rapacious foraging behavior, satisfying 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.800 the energy needs of the colony with raids that cover 0:18:43.960 --> 0:18:47.919 hundreds of meters according to one estimate. I believe this 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.280 was cited by Carl and Marion rhetten Meyer, who'll I'll 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:53.959 mention again in a moment their aunt experts. But the 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:57.720 figure is that on average, each colony of Seton Bricelli 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:03.840 i kills and eats about thirty thousands small animals every day. Wow, 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.159 thirty every single day. Uh. And so they have this 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:15.359 carnivorous diet, this enormous carnivorous diet that is especially important 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:19.600 because they're trying to supply the developing larvae of their 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.040 colony with a high fat diet that the larvae need 0:19:23.119 --> 0:19:25.920 in order to grow, so that the babies need animal 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.359 fat and the adults go out rating. So there's another 0:19:29.840 --> 0:19:33.320 really interesting thing about this species to me, which is 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:37.600 that they do not make permanent nests. Seton Brichelli I 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.879 do not make permanent nests. We often think of ant 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:45.280 colonies as defined by their nests, right the ant hills 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:49.239 answer environmental engineers. But due to the energy needs of 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:52.639 this species, they can't be tied down to one place 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.280 for too long. Imagine them trying to form a permanent 0:19:56.359 --> 0:19:59.040 nest while their larvae are growing and they have these 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.720 huge require months for animal fat, you know, other insects 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:04.840 to bring in and all that. Within a day or 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:07.600 two they probably would have cleared out all of the 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:10.760 food sources within I don't know, maybe a few hundred 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:15.160 square meters of wherever they are. So instead, Esseton Bricelli 0:20:15.200 --> 0:20:19.960 I builds a mobile fortress known as a bivouac. This 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:23.199 is a moving fortress that protects the queen and the 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:26.800 developing larvae. But the fortress is made not out of 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.560 structures or materials from the environment. It is made out 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:34.600 of ants. Do you see Do you understand? It is 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:38.600 a war rig four ants made out of the interlocked 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:44.160 bodies of living ants, like a cage of millions of legs, antennae, 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:48.520 and mandibles. I want to quote from Peter Tyson, writing 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.680 for Nova in an article about these things, quote this 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:56.280 elliptical mass talking about the bivouac. This elliptical mass maybe 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:00.360 three feet across and hold up to seven hundred thousand ants. 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:02.640 When they need to move to a new site where 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.439 they bivouac on the surface, rather than build a nest, 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:10.560 eber Chellii workers go first ferrying food and larvae. Only 0:21:10.600 --> 0:21:14.680 after nightfall does the queen follow escorted by a massive 0:21:14.680 --> 0:21:18.280 soldier ants that completely surround her and will defend her 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:22.679 with their lives. So the bivouac again, is this moving fortress. 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:26.600 The queen is inside and the cage cannot be breached. 0:21:27.200 --> 0:21:30.920 Uh this this was just so captivating to me. And 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.280 so if you're looking for these things in the forest, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:36.240 the bivouac can sometimes be found inside a hollow log 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.560 or just on the forest floor, but also sometimes it 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:44.000 can be found hanging suspended from tree limbs. Imagine that 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:47.320 like a dangling fortress for ants made out of ants, 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:50.680 and it falls in line with a more general tendency 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.120 of some ant species, including this one, toward body based 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:58.240 engineering projects. These army ants are also known to say, 0:21:58.240 --> 0:22:02.800 assist the mobility of their horses by filling in potholes 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.160 along the foraging route with plugs made out of live ants, 0:22:06.280 --> 0:22:09.119 so you just smooth over, smooth over the surface with ants, 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.639 or also for building bridges out of themselves to allow 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:17.600 the rest of the army to cross gaps. And apparently 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:21.360 these BiVO wax also uh emit an other worldly stinch, 0:22:21.640 --> 0:22:24.520 this amazing smell that allows you to locate them by 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.600 smell alone. Within the rainforest. I would love to know 0:22:27.640 --> 0:22:30.040 what this smells like. You Now, all of this is 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:35.320 a wonderful example two of the super organism aspects of ants. 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:39.480 How with other creatures we we we we talk about 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:43.240 the individual, you know, and in terms of understanding the species. 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.360 But but with ants, you look at behaviors like this 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:51.119 and you see there's such cohesion, there's there's there's such 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:56.000 use social um perfection that you can't look at an 0:22:56.040 --> 0:22:58.400 individual ant to understand them. You have to look at 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:02.399 what the pliny itself is doing. But there's another thing 0:23:02.440 --> 0:23:05.000 I was thinking about with this model of ant life, 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.359 the fact that these ants create no permanent nests. It 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:12.320 sort of reminds me of the idea of the strategic 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.760 advantage of offense. You know, the old saying that the 0:23:15.800 --> 0:23:19.359 best defense is a good offense. This is actually considered 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:23.560 true in some cases in military theory, because the reasoning 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:27.440 goes that when you're on the attack, you have freedom. Basically, 0:23:27.480 --> 0:23:30.240 you like, as you're on the attack, you are creating 0:23:30.359 --> 0:23:35.359 options for yourself, versus when you're defending, you have constraints, 0:23:35.440 --> 0:23:38.320 you have limited options. This is often true just for 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:41.280 example in chess. Uh you know the chess players talk 0:23:41.320 --> 0:23:44.320 about the initiative that you gain when you're on the attack. 0:23:44.800 --> 0:23:49.640 You're constantly limiting the options for your opponents next move 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:52.760 if they have to defend their pieces against an attack 0:23:52.840 --> 0:23:56.280 that you just set up. And this is obviously true 0:23:56.280 --> 0:23:59.720 across multiple context It's known as maintaining the initiative. Now, 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:03.640 obviously there are there are many uh, there are many 0:24:03.680 --> 0:24:06.760 advantages you can get from having a defensive structure, like 0:24:06.800 --> 0:24:09.000 a nest that's buried down in the ground. You know, 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.280 the queen is very well protected, but that also limits 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:14.320 your options, right and and this is sort of the 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:18.160 all offense strategy of the ant world. Well, it seems 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:19.800 to be working well for them. I mean, it's not 0:24:19.880 --> 0:24:23.640 like they busted this strategy out of on a test basis. 0:24:24.320 --> 0:24:29.239 This has been honed over for millions of years. So 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:31.720 there's another thing that I was thinking about because I 0:24:32.200 --> 0:24:34.480 was thinking about warfare and Game of Thrones, and one 0:24:34.520 --> 0:24:36.680 thing I like that's acknowledged in those books is sort 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:40.320 of like the real resource needs of moving armies. You know, 0:24:40.400 --> 0:24:42.919 it's not like a lot of fantasy where it's just 0:24:43.080 --> 0:24:48.480 sort of like uh, almost ethereal warriors just ranging limitlessly 0:24:48.600 --> 0:24:50.919 to do their heroic deeds, you know, I mean, like 0:24:50.960 --> 0:24:53.760 you get the idea in those books that like, our 0:24:53.880 --> 0:24:57.240 armies need supplies and all that. And and also it's 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:00.520 acknowledged that there are huge numbers of people that a 0:25:00.640 --> 0:25:04.000 company armies that are not themselves warriors. These are known 0:25:04.040 --> 0:25:07.359 as camp followers, and this is absolutely something that that 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:11.320 happens in real warfare. Large armies don't operate in a vacuum. 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:14.720 They have material needs that are not necessarily related to battle, 0:25:15.480 --> 0:25:19.520 and they also create needs and opportunities for resource capture 0:25:19.720 --> 0:25:22.720 as they move and fight. And this this is why 0:25:22.880 --> 0:25:25.960 armies on campaign or historically a company both by camp 0:25:26.040 --> 0:25:29.160 followers that you know, might like sell things to soldiers 0:25:29.560 --> 0:25:33.280 or might be family members of soldiers, or sell services 0:25:33.320 --> 0:25:36.159 to soldiers, um, that kind of thing. But there are 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:40.040 also often bandits that follow around moving armies because you know, 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:44.520 when an army comes in and attacks somewhere, disturbs the 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:48.720 existing order, that creates a lot of opportunities to exploit. Yeah, 0:25:48.720 --> 0:25:51.680 I mean, it's an absolute disruption, so it makes sense 0:25:51.720 --> 0:25:54.159 that opportunists would be there to take advantage of it. 0:25:54.440 --> 0:25:57.240 And I agree, I think this is something that that 0:25:57.240 --> 0:25:59.960 that that is well explored in the Song of Ice 0:26:00.000 --> 0:26:03.080 and Fire books, the idea of of war that just 0:26:04.240 --> 0:26:07.560 you know, ravages the countryside in so many ways, like 0:26:07.600 --> 0:26:12.000 it just just totally destroys all the resources in the area. Um. 0:26:12.200 --> 0:26:15.639 I think I think they probably, I think they probably 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:17.399 brought this out well in this series to to a 0:26:17.440 --> 0:26:20.960 certain extent, especially early one. Yeah, I mean towards the 0:26:21.040 --> 0:26:23.840 end of that those human wars like West Ross is 0:26:23.920 --> 0:26:28.200 just decimated and just tired and exhausted. Yeah, that's true. 0:26:28.280 --> 0:26:31.520 And I mean it reflects reality that that the war 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:34.000 is not just a clash between armies, but it's the 0:26:34.080 --> 0:26:37.719 sort of the army versus the entire environment and everyone 0:26:37.800 --> 0:26:41.320 living within it. And I think this is in some 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:45.240 ways very true, Uh for ants as well. I was 0:26:45.280 --> 0:26:48.000 reading a really good article. Uh it was a short article, 0:26:48.000 --> 0:26:49.920 but a good one in that GEO by the always 0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:54.400 great ed young Um that was focused on work by 0:26:54.680 --> 0:26:57.520 Carl and Marian retten Meyer. I mentioned them a minute ago. 0:26:57.920 --> 0:27:02.080 These are ant experts who created it a nearly exhaustive 0:27:02.160 --> 0:27:06.840 catalog of all of the animals that follow the army 0:27:06.920 --> 0:27:10.879 ant species seton Bercellia. So these are the camp followers 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:16.240 in the bandits that accompany this army uh, Ed writes, quote, 0:27:16.280 --> 0:27:19.439 there's no doubting their success as predators, but army ants 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:22.920 also bring life wherever they march. They have an entourage 0:27:22.960 --> 0:27:27.200 of over five hundred and fifty species that hang around 0:27:27.240 --> 0:27:30.720 their legions, of which three hundred or so depend on 0:27:30.800 --> 0:27:34.720 the ants for their survival. So in their disruption of 0:27:34.720 --> 0:27:38.320 of the environment around them, they are also creating enough 0:27:38.560 --> 0:27:42.639 opportunities for the exploitation of resources that a full like 0:27:42.800 --> 0:27:46.320 three hundred or so species couldn't live without these ants, 0:27:46.320 --> 0:27:49.919 and another two hundred something or so uh depend on 0:27:49.960 --> 0:27:53.000 them in large ways. Wow, that's impressive. You know, I 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:55.760 hadn't really thought about it. We talked about the ecological 0:27:55.800 --> 0:27:59.359 importance of the hants um and uh and this is 0:27:59.400 --> 0:28:03.000 just another example of that. Yeah, so this includes like 0:28:03.119 --> 0:28:06.240 two hundred or so species of bird. One example is 0:28:06.280 --> 0:28:09.040 the oscillated ant bird. There are a number of antbirds 0:28:09.600 --> 0:28:11.840 ants as they as they move along the army ants 0:28:11.880 --> 0:28:15.719 will flush insects out of hiding. They'll flush out insects, arachnids, 0:28:15.760 --> 0:28:19.679 small invertebrates, and and so the ant birds will watch 0:28:19.760 --> 0:28:22.359 this happen and swoop in and take advantage of the 0:28:22.400 --> 0:28:25.960 fleeing animals. Uh, they actually almost never prey on the 0:28:26.000 --> 0:28:29.480 ants themselves, And so the antbirds will fly around the 0:28:29.520 --> 0:28:34.159 forest checking in on seething bivouacs. Right they perform a 0:28:34.200 --> 0:28:37.760 bivouac check, they're like, okay, is this bivouac about to march? 0:28:38.240 --> 0:28:39.840 And if it looks like one is about to get 0:28:39.840 --> 0:28:42.560 the war rig ready and send its workers out on raids, 0:28:43.040 --> 0:28:47.280 and the birds will converge here and start looking for opportunities. Apparently, 0:28:47.280 --> 0:28:49.840 the ant birds will fight amongst each other for the 0:28:49.880 --> 0:28:53.160 best spots. Of course, the best spot would basically be 0:28:53.280 --> 0:28:56.680 positioned just beyond the advancing front to catch all of 0:28:56.720 --> 0:28:59.080 the panic prey animals as soon as they're driven out 0:28:59.080 --> 0:29:02.000 of hiding. Interesting. You know, I wonder if anyone's ever 0:29:02.360 --> 0:29:04.480 tackled this from a sci fi perspective. You know, we're 0:29:04.520 --> 0:29:08.080 we're always encountering situations in sci fi where humanity is 0:29:08.160 --> 0:29:10.280 locked in a you know, an epic strup will struggle 0:29:10.280 --> 0:29:13.720 against some alien adversary or there or they've been partially 0:29:13.880 --> 0:29:16.680 wiped out by an alien adversary. I wonder if anyone's 0:29:16.720 --> 0:29:19.880 ever explored the idea of of, you know, the alien 0:29:20.040 --> 0:29:22.520 force comes that decimates the planet. You end up with 0:29:22.560 --> 0:29:26.160 like a post apocalyptic scenario. But then the primary antagonist 0:29:26.280 --> 0:29:29.360 is not the destroyer because the destroyers moved on. It's 0:29:29.400 --> 0:29:32.160 the opportunists to come in their wake, right, the ant 0:29:32.200 --> 0:29:34.800 birds and the scavengers that come in after Earth has 0:29:34.840 --> 0:29:37.520 been Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that would be an 0:29:37.560 --> 0:29:40.240 interesting thing. I've never read anything like that, but I 0:29:40.320 --> 0:29:42.880 bet somebody has tried that idea. Yeah. Well, if they have, 0:29:43.080 --> 0:29:45.600 someone tell me what it is. And if it doesn't exist, 0:29:45.640 --> 0:29:48.200 somebody write it so I can read it. You know. 0:29:48.240 --> 0:29:51.480 Another interesting thing about these ant birds at young points 0:29:51.480 --> 0:29:54.080 out is that on top of them existing as as 0:29:54.200 --> 0:29:57.160 sort of opportunists in what the ants do, there are 0:29:57.320 --> 0:30:01.240 secondary opportunists. And these are are a lot of species 0:30:01.240 --> 0:30:05.000 of butterflies that follow the ant birds to feed off 0:30:05.040 --> 0:30:08.120 of their droppings after they have preyed on the insects 0:30:08.120 --> 0:30:10.080 and other animals that are fleshed out by the ants. 0:30:11.200 --> 0:30:13.520 But beyond that that, there are a lot of other species. 0:30:13.600 --> 0:30:17.000 And there's not just species looking for food resources. Apparently 0:30:17.040 --> 0:30:21.240 parasitic wasps and flies that reproduced by implanting larvae in 0:30:21.280 --> 0:30:25.120 the bodies of other invertebrates. They also follow army ants 0:30:25.160 --> 0:30:29.120 worms watching for the ants to drive crickets, grasshoppers, cockroaches, 0:30:29.160 --> 0:30:31.880 and other critters out of hiding, and then the parasites 0:30:31.960 --> 0:30:37.400 take immediate advantage at young sites caladoxia flies, but also 0:30:37.520 --> 0:30:42.000 quote stylo gaster flies which shoot harpoon like eggs at 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:47.920 fleeing cockroaches, and and flesh flies that lay their eggs 0:30:47.960 --> 0:30:50.800 in the open wounds of animals that have been injured 0:30:50.880 --> 0:30:54.120 but not dismembered by the ants. Oh wow, So in 0:30:54.160 --> 0:30:59.160 some cases, not being killed by the ant horde um 0:30:59.400 --> 0:31:03.080 is war worse than actually being decimated. About it, well, 0:31:03.240 --> 0:31:04.960 I guess it depends on what you think is worse. 0:31:05.000 --> 0:31:06.880 I mean, is it worse to be injured by ants 0:31:06.880 --> 0:31:09.960 and then get maggots implanted in you, or just to 0:31:10.040 --> 0:31:13.880 be killed just to be disassembled out right? Yeah? Even 0:31:13.880 --> 0:31:18.960 more amazingly, some parasites actually live within the ant bivouax themselves, 0:31:19.000 --> 0:31:22.640 having various adaptations. We've talked about aunt mimics before. There 0:31:22.640 --> 0:31:26.120 are apparently some species like this, like beetles, that survived 0:31:26.160 --> 0:31:28.760 by mimicking ants and just sort of like hanging out 0:31:29.120 --> 0:31:33.160 among the ants trying to be undetected. But this was 0:31:33.200 --> 0:31:36.360 my favorite part ed. Young writes that some parasites quote 0:31:36.880 --> 0:31:41.960 use the ants as mobile restaurants, jumping onto workers that 0:31:42.000 --> 0:31:45.880 are carrying food and eating their booty right under or 0:31:46.040 --> 0:31:49.680 over their very jaws. So they hang out on the 0:31:49.720 --> 0:31:54.680 ant head, eating the food that the ant is carrying. Again, 0:31:54.720 --> 0:31:57.000 I think for a lot of species this would require 0:31:57.120 --> 0:32:00.640 very special adaptations or you know, you would immediately become 0:32:01.080 --> 0:32:05.480 prey yourself. But it's just amazing to imagine the tiny, 0:32:05.720 --> 0:32:10.800 like full ecosystems basically that are made possible by the 0:32:10.840 --> 0:32:15.160 opportunities created by the chaos of a rating army. Yeah, 0:32:15.200 --> 0:32:16.880 in a way, you kind of have to come back 0:32:16.920 --> 0:32:20.240 to that that analogy of the superorganism, right, that the 0:32:20.240 --> 0:32:23.680 the ant colony is what we might think of as 0:32:23.680 --> 0:32:26.479 the individual, Like the ant colony is the body, and 0:32:26.560 --> 0:32:29.400 so it is going to have its own parasites, It's 0:32:29.400 --> 0:32:33.640 going to have its own uh symbiotic relationships and uh 0:32:33.880 --> 0:32:36.640 and and that's kind of what we're seeing here. Absolutely, 0:32:36.680 --> 0:32:39.360 I think this is just the most astonishing species. I 0:32:39.360 --> 0:32:42.160 feel like maybe we're not even done with with with Ston. 0:32:42.480 --> 0:32:45.440 We can move on in this episode, but but we 0:32:45.520 --> 0:32:47.080 may have to come back to them in the future. 0:32:47.440 --> 0:32:48.760 All right, and that note, we're going to take a 0:32:48.840 --> 0:32:51.680 quick break, but when we come back, we will consider 0:32:52.040 --> 0:32:59.240 the marauder ants. All Right, we're back. So we've already 0:32:59.280 --> 0:33:02.160 talked some about ant species that are referred to as 0:33:02.200 --> 0:33:05.560 the marauder ants. You read a passage from one of 0:33:05.560 --> 0:33:08.960 those articles by Martin W. Moffatt about marauder ants. Yeah. 0:33:09.160 --> 0:33:12.960 Moffatt points out that marauder ants excel in deploying troops 0:33:12.960 --> 0:33:16.560 in ways that increase efficiency and reduce the cost to 0:33:16.600 --> 0:33:20.480 a colony. And one thing that really makes them interesting, uh, 0:33:20.640 --> 0:33:24.880 is their variety in sizes among the workers. They vary 0:33:24.960 --> 0:33:28.800 in size more than workers in any other ant colony. 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:31.960 So this is where it gets interesting in a sort 0:33:32.000 --> 0:33:36.560 of war game point of view manner, because essentially we're 0:33:36.560 --> 0:33:41.760 getting into different unit types here. So if you're fielding droids, 0:33:41.800 --> 0:33:46.080 for instance, on on on in a battle, yeah, we're 0:33:46.080 --> 0:33:48.360 doing clone wars here. You're not. You're not just busting 0:33:48.360 --> 0:33:51.000 out a ton of standard B one battle droids, right, 0:33:51.040 --> 0:33:54.280 you're also busting out B two super heavy battle droids 0:33:54.360 --> 0:33:59.920 or heavy weapon uh droid ecka droidka um roly poly guy. 0:34:00.440 --> 0:34:03.239 If you're playing something like Warhammer, forty thousand. It's not 0:34:03.280 --> 0:34:06.880 just space marines. You're also busting out specialized assault marines 0:34:07.000 --> 0:34:10.080 or heavy terminators, that sort of thing. And so Moffatt 0:34:10.120 --> 0:34:15.440 points out that the marauders deploy smaller miners, uh that's 0:34:15.480 --> 0:34:17.680 what we call them, or foot soldiers, to the front 0:34:17.680 --> 0:34:21.439 line and there these are just weak and hopeless, uh 0:34:21.760 --> 0:34:25.719 individuals against adversaries. But there are tons of them, so 0:34:25.800 --> 0:34:29.040 they work as a kind of barricade. They bogged down 0:34:29.080 --> 0:34:32.560 the enemy long enough for larger ants to move in 0:34:32.880 --> 0:34:36.640 the media's and the majors. So again, same species, same 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:40.960 essentially um variety of this ant, but it's like a 0:34:41.040 --> 0:34:45.120 it's a different cast, radically different body forms. Yeah, some 0:34:45.320 --> 0:34:49.440 of these individuals print the majors compared to the miners. 0:34:49.760 --> 0:34:54.120 They are five hundred times as heavy as the smaller version. 0:34:54.400 --> 0:34:56.719 So these are real bruisers, I mean, these are these 0:34:56.760 --> 0:35:00.560 are monsters. Uh. My initial impulse would be to compare 0:35:00.600 --> 0:35:04.960 these like strictly to larger um you know, bruiser heavy 0:35:05.000 --> 0:35:08.359 class fighters and fantasy armies, like I'm thinking about some 0:35:08.400 --> 0:35:11.640 of the big specialized trolls and the armies of Mordor. 0:35:12.120 --> 0:35:14.360 But but then I was thinking about it. I was 0:35:14.400 --> 0:35:18.000 like looking at the size deferential here, and Okay, let's 0:35:18.000 --> 0:35:21.560 assume that an orc, or say a stormtrooper, uh is 0:35:21.719 --> 0:35:24.719 roughly the average weight of a human. If we're to 0:35:24.840 --> 0:35:29.120 multiply that by five hundred, you're talking thirty four tons. 0:35:29.680 --> 0:35:32.640 So in the real world, that's essentially the difference between 0:35:32.640 --> 0:35:36.240 a human and a humpback whale. Okay, so that's crazy. 0:35:36.560 --> 0:35:39.880 Even even the troll would not really capture the size 0:35:39.920 --> 0:35:42.960 difference appropriately. Yeah, Like I ended up going down a 0:35:43.040 --> 0:35:46.240 rabbit hole trying to figure out how heavy different fantasy 0:35:46.280 --> 0:35:50.440 and sci fi army vehicles and units were. And it's 0:35:50.480 --> 0:35:53.920 best I can tell based on some fan estimates. You 0:35:54.000 --> 0:35:58.040 might draw a comparison here between a single Imperial stormtrooper 0:35:58.080 --> 0:36:01.160 and one of those two legged a t ST walkers. 0:36:02.239 --> 0:36:05.799 That would be the difference between a Marauder minor aunt 0:36:05.920 --> 0:36:09.520 and a Marauder major aunt. This is what Mafata writes. 0:36:09.680 --> 0:36:13.440 Quote the miners sacrifices on the front. Ryans assure a 0:36:13.560 --> 0:36:17.240 low mortality for the media's and the majors, which require 0:36:17.280 --> 0:36:20.440 far more resources for the colony to raise and men maintain. 0:36:20.920 --> 0:36:23.960 Putting the easily replaced fighters at greatest risk is a 0:36:24.080 --> 0:36:28.040 time honored battle technique. So, in other words, stormtroopers are 0:36:28.120 --> 0:36:32.560 notoriously bad shots, and they are apparently easily replaced, But 0:36:32.640 --> 0:36:35.359 you'r a T S T S. Those are far more precious. Yeah, 0:36:35.400 --> 0:36:38.919 that will they cost more to make? Yeah. Mafata also 0:36:38.960 --> 0:36:41.759 points out that the marauders tactics here line up with 0:36:41.800 --> 0:36:45.440 the example one season armies throughout history the use of 0:36:45.520 --> 0:36:51.279 conscripted farmers and laborers alongside elite professional soldiers, with the 0:36:51.280 --> 0:36:54.240 common soldiers absorbing the worst of it while the elite 0:36:54.320 --> 0:36:58.000 units are protected and move in at strategic intervals. He 0:36:58.040 --> 0:37:00.239 also points out that marauders use what is known in 0:37:00.320 --> 0:37:05.120 military strategy as defeat in detail tactics, defeating an enemy 0:37:05.360 --> 0:37:09.080 unit by unit, rather than engaging in enemy's full strength. Now, 0:37:09.200 --> 0:37:13.160 marauder ants also battle their own kind, pitting colony against colony, 0:37:13.440 --> 0:37:16.960 and in these contests the majors and the media's also 0:37:17.120 --> 0:37:20.040 hang back and let the miners do most of the fighting, 0:37:20.280 --> 0:37:23.080 tearing each other apart, and in contests that tend to 0:37:23.120 --> 0:37:26.960 be even more brutal than the interspecies conflicts that also 0:37:27.000 --> 0:37:30.240 take place. I'm gonna get to some of the logic 0:37:30.320 --> 0:37:33.000 behind the differences in strategy here in just a minute. 0:37:33.000 --> 0:37:35.720 By the way, yeah, because Moffatt refers to the work 0:37:35.960 --> 0:37:39.480 of University of Bristol's Nigel Franks, who found that the 0:37:39.520 --> 0:37:43.000 tactics of these ants in particular is consistent with Lanchester's 0:37:43.000 --> 0:37:46.399 square law, an equation developed in World War One by 0:37:46.440 --> 0:37:50.520 engineer Frederick Lanchester, who also devised Lanchester's linear law, which 0:37:50.520 --> 0:37:53.560 will also touch based on here. Yeah, I keep wanting 0:37:53.600 --> 0:37:56.960 to say, lanister, so don't let me say that. Keep 0:37:56.960 --> 0:38:01.880 coming back to the fantasy warfare now. So, Lanchester's laws 0:38:01.920 --> 0:38:07.560 are a set of mathematical models trying to explain outcomes 0:38:07.600 --> 0:38:12.600 in battle based on various kinds of initial force disparities. Generally, 0:38:13.800 --> 0:38:17.040 the main disparities are going to be individual unit effectiveness, 0:38:17.080 --> 0:38:19.839 so like how much damage each unit can do, and 0:38:19.880 --> 0:38:24.399 then also the numbers of combatants on either side. Lanchester's 0:38:24.440 --> 0:38:28.400 square law in particular shows that in some types of combat. 0:38:28.480 --> 0:38:31.680 This is not all conflicts, but in some types of combat, 0:38:31.760 --> 0:38:36.000 for example shooting wars involving masses of soldiers armed with 0:38:36.120 --> 0:38:39.560 rifles that can aim in any direction. In these types 0:38:39.600 --> 0:38:44.719 of combat, there are ways of organizing confrontations majorly to 0:38:44.760 --> 0:38:48.160 your advantage. Just just based on the numbers of forces 0:38:48.200 --> 0:38:51.640 and how they're grouped specifically, that the main takeaway is 0:38:52.000 --> 0:38:55.880 don't split your forces. Um So to illustrate this, you 0:38:55.880 --> 0:38:59.120 can imagine, say you've got battle droids in in Star Wars, 0:38:59.160 --> 0:39:02.680 and say maybe one side has a hundred battle droids 0:39:02.719 --> 0:39:05.240 and the other side has exactly a hundred battle droids 0:39:05.280 --> 0:39:08.400 as well. If you imagine each of the battle droids 0:39:08.440 --> 0:39:11.759 can shoot its blaster one time every second, and each 0:39:11.760 --> 0:39:15.879 shot has a chance of destroying its target, you can 0:39:16.000 --> 0:39:18.760 work out that after one second of battle, both forces 0:39:18.800 --> 0:39:23.840 will be reduced equally by about maybe after another second, etcetera. 0:39:23.880 --> 0:39:26.640 And it just goes on as the two sides decreased 0:39:26.680 --> 0:39:30.520 by attrition at roughly the same rate, until both armies 0:39:30.560 --> 0:39:33.520 are mostly are fully vanquished at around the same time, 0:39:33.960 --> 0:39:36.799 unless for some reason one side gets an advantage early on. 0:39:37.680 --> 0:39:40.400 But that kind of process does not scale in a 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:44.000 linear way. So if you have say a hundred droids 0:39:44.200 --> 0:39:47.480 versus an opponents at general grievous is your opposing army 0:39:47.520 --> 0:39:51.000 and he's just got fifty droids, you you probably can 0:39:51.040 --> 0:39:54.279 assume that the larger force will win, but you might 0:39:54.320 --> 0:39:58.880 not understand how much of an advantage the larger force has. 0:39:58.920 --> 0:40:00.759 So if if you have the know the same kind 0:40:00.760 --> 0:40:04.240 of thing working, after the first second, your hundred droids 0:40:04.239 --> 0:40:08.720 will probably have destroyed roughly half of your opponent's fifty droids, 0:40:08.719 --> 0:40:11.200 but they really will not have destroyed many of yours 0:40:11.280 --> 0:40:14.600 at all, maybe only like twelve or so. And as 0:40:14.680 --> 0:40:18.640 each second of battle goes on, you reduce their fighting 0:40:18.680 --> 0:40:22.480 effectiveness more and more, until what you're left with in 0:40:22.480 --> 0:40:26.799 the end is very little casualties to the larger army 0:40:26.840 --> 0:40:30.040 and total decimation of the smaller one. And so this shows, 0:40:30.040 --> 0:40:31.719 for example, that if you have a force of a 0:40:31.800 --> 0:40:35.160 hundred battle droids, it would be much easier for that 0:40:35.320 --> 0:40:39.200 those one hundred battle droids to win two consecutive battles 0:40:39.239 --> 0:40:43.280 against fifty battle droids than to win one single battle 0:40:43.320 --> 0:40:46.320 against a force of one hundred. And this is exactly 0:40:46.320 --> 0:40:50.239 why divide and conquer is such an important principle of warfare. 0:40:50.600 --> 0:40:53.960 If you break your enemy up into smaller groupings with 0:40:54.040 --> 0:40:57.439 these certain types of combat, your advantage over them does 0:40:57.480 --> 0:41:02.120 not increase linearly, it multiplied by the square uh. In fact, 0:41:02.160 --> 0:41:04.960 if you choose your battles wisely, you can even use 0:41:05.000 --> 0:41:08.040 this to allow a smaller force to beat a bigger one. 0:41:08.120 --> 0:41:10.440 So if you've got a hundred battle droids, general Grievas 0:41:10.480 --> 0:41:14.440 has two hundred, you could still potentially beat him overall 0:41:14.480 --> 0:41:18.360 by keeping your forces together and peeling off small segments 0:41:18.400 --> 0:41:21.480 of like ten or twenty at a time to face sequentially, 0:41:21.600 --> 0:41:25.560 with negligible losses to your own forces each time. So 0:41:25.960 --> 0:41:27.759 this is again where we come back to defeat in 0:41:27.880 --> 0:41:32.480 detail exactly right. So, in mathematical terms, what Lanchester predicted 0:41:32.640 --> 0:41:36.200 was that in these certain types of scenarios, uh, the 0:41:36.360 --> 0:41:38.760 strength of a group on the battlefield is the product 0:41:38.800 --> 0:41:42.840 of two things. The effectiveness of each fighting unit not 0:41:43.200 --> 0:41:46.839 times the number of units, but times the square of 0:41:46.920 --> 0:41:49.120 the number of units. And that's why it's known as 0:41:49.200 --> 0:41:52.480 the square law. And it tells you that for certain 0:41:52.520 --> 0:41:57.040 types of combat, sheer numbers can easily overwhelm differences in 0:41:57.080 --> 0:42:01.919 the effectiveness of individual fighting units. And it's interesting how 0:42:01.960 --> 0:42:05.240 this tends to go against what seems to be people's 0:42:06.120 --> 0:42:11.920 desire to understand like dramatic violent conflict in narratives like 0:42:12.000 --> 0:42:14.680 in you know, epic poetry and action movies and all that, 0:42:14.760 --> 0:42:17.480 where it seems like what people or at least what 0:42:17.560 --> 0:42:21.120 authors think people want to see. Uh is the idea 0:42:21.200 --> 0:42:24.399 that a single highly effective combatant you know, you're John 0:42:24.440 --> 0:42:29.560 Wick or whoever, can overcome many less effective enemies ganging 0:42:29.640 --> 0:42:32.520 up on them. And for many types of combat, this 0:42:32.600 --> 0:42:35.920 is not how real fighting actually works. Numbers are significantly 0:42:36.000 --> 0:42:39.720 more important than skills, Like better to have five hundred 0:42:39.760 --> 0:42:45.839 off brand discount battle droids than fifty elite i G units. Yeah, yeah, 0:42:45.880 --> 0:42:48.799 it it. It certainly does run run counter to our 0:42:48.840 --> 0:42:51.439 our our epic storytelling. Yeah, where it's like a one 0:42:51.640 --> 0:42:55.200 rag tag group of talented individuals can can can turn 0:42:55.280 --> 0:42:59.720 the tide of battle against against the faceless hord. Yeah yeah. 0:42:59.760 --> 0:43:01.880 And we should not again that the square law is 0:43:01.880 --> 0:43:05.440 not supposed to apply to all types of combat. For example, 0:43:05.880 --> 0:43:09.040 in situations where combatants have to face one another in 0:43:09.200 --> 0:43:12.640 one on one duels, one at a time, they're the 0:43:12.680 --> 0:43:16.239 advantages of superior numbers are reduced to something closer to 0:43:16.320 --> 0:43:20.520 a pure linear function, and the individual effectiveness of of 0:43:20.560 --> 0:43:23.400 each unit becomes a lot more relevant. And so the 0:43:23.400 --> 0:43:25.400 way this works out in the real world is that, 0:43:25.480 --> 0:43:29.480 like in situations where your forces do not have numerical superiority, 0:43:29.560 --> 0:43:32.520 military leaders who are conscious of these issues will try 0:43:32.600 --> 0:43:38.000 to engineer battle conditions to avoid square law scenarios and 0:43:38.239 --> 0:43:41.719 enforced linear law scenarios instead. One example would be like 0:43:42.239 --> 0:43:46.680 using natural terrain or fortifications to create choke points where 0:43:47.120 --> 0:43:50.719 the majority of the enemy forces are held back from 0:43:50.719 --> 0:43:53.919 the action. That can't all fight you at once, the 0:43:54.000 --> 0:43:56.040 number of them that can fight you at the same 0:43:56.040 --> 0:43:59.840 time is limited by topography, and thus the battle becomes 0:44:00.160 --> 0:44:03.040 it starts to resemble something more like a series of 0:44:03.080 --> 0:44:06.960 sequential duels instead of a simultaneous war of all against all. 0:44:07.440 --> 0:44:10.000 And of course examples of this in history. Or you 0:44:10.000 --> 0:44:12.160 know the way the thing about the way castles are constructed, 0:44:12.239 --> 0:44:17.680 narrow passageways, uh, you know, natural ravines, bridges, gates, a 0:44:17.760 --> 0:44:21.320 spiral staircase in the castle tower. These tend to reduce 0:44:21.440 --> 0:44:24.239 the salience of the square law advantage and help you out, 0:44:24.320 --> 0:44:28.480 especially if you've got a smaller number of more effective fighters. So, 0:44:28.760 --> 0:44:31.279 to bring this back to ants, the question here is 0:44:31.560 --> 0:44:34.240 which of these models is better at predicting the outcomes 0:44:34.280 --> 0:44:37.399 of ant wars. Is it the linear model where there's 0:44:37.480 --> 0:44:40.520 this direct linear relationship between the size of forces and 0:44:40.560 --> 0:44:43.080 the outcome, or is it the square model where the 0:44:43.160 --> 0:44:47.600 larger numbers of concentrated forces just easily overwhelm other concerns 0:44:47.680 --> 0:44:51.759 like the like individual fighting unit effectiveness. UH. There was 0:44:51.800 --> 0:44:54.560 a paper that was published in the nineteen nineties and 0:44:54.600 --> 0:44:59.440 the journal Animal Behavior. This was in nine by Mary E. A. 0:44:59.560 --> 0:45:03.600 White how House in Klaus Jaffa called ant Wars Combat 0:45:03.640 --> 0:45:07.080 Strategies Territory and Nest Defense in the leaf cutting ant 0:45:07.160 --> 0:45:10.960 Atta leave Agatta And according to their research, they found 0:45:11.040 --> 0:45:14.360 quote the leaf cutting ant atta leave Agata responded to 0:45:14.400 --> 0:45:18.840 a simulated vertebrate threat by recruiting many soldiers, and the 0:45:18.840 --> 0:45:22.520 soldiers would be a special special fighters large workers, but 0:45:22.640 --> 0:45:27.719 responded to con specific and interspecific ant threats by recruiting 0:45:27.800 --> 0:45:32.359 mainly small ants. So the vertebrate attack here was simulated 0:45:32.840 --> 0:45:34.839 pretty much by poking a stick and you know, as 0:45:34.880 --> 0:45:37.160 they poke a stick into the entrance of the colony 0:45:37.200 --> 0:45:40.120 nest and then shake it for twenty seconds. And this 0:45:40.200 --> 0:45:43.160 was meant to mimic the mechanical disturbance that would be 0:45:43.200 --> 0:45:47.040 caused by an ants by the ant's main predator, the armadillo. 0:45:47.280 --> 0:45:49.520 In these attacks, what the ants would tend to do 0:45:49.680 --> 0:45:52.360 is they would bring more of their elite fighters to 0:45:52.480 --> 0:45:56.320 defend the nest, So in this situation it appears evolution 0:45:56.400 --> 0:46:00.279 maybe favoring the linear reasoning in this case. Meanwhile, when 0:46:00.320 --> 0:46:03.960 the ants are attacked by other ants, they tended to 0:46:04.000 --> 0:46:08.440 respond instead with overwhelming numbers of less dedicated fighters. So 0:46:08.719 --> 0:46:11.719 a threat from arrival ant colony seems to have been 0:46:11.760 --> 0:46:15.239 solved by natural selection to select for behaviors motivated by 0:46:15.239 --> 0:46:19.799 the square law. Along these lines, Mofa also points out 0:46:19.840 --> 0:46:23.279 the quote a fighter's value to its colony bears on 0:46:23.320 --> 0:46:26.880 the risks the ant takes. The more expendable she is, 0:46:26.960 --> 0:46:29.680 the more likely she is to end up in harm's way. 0:46:30.280 --> 0:46:34.080 As such marauder ants, he writes, they guard their foraging 0:46:34.120 --> 0:46:38.440 trails with old and or maimed workers and in fire ants, 0:46:38.440 --> 0:46:41.319 it's been observed that the old stay and fight, while 0:46:41.360 --> 0:46:44.759 the very young runaway and and firemants more in their 0:46:44.800 --> 0:46:48.640 prime will actually uh fake their own deaths. Wow, we'll 0:46:48.719 --> 0:46:51.760 fake their own deaths. I mean, this is again something 0:46:51.800 --> 0:46:54.239 that makes more sense if you think about the ant 0:46:54.280 --> 0:46:57.760 colony as a single superorganism. It's like it's it's putting 0:46:57.800 --> 0:47:02.279 the the already day imaged or less effective parts of 0:47:02.360 --> 0:47:05.440 itself out in front to absorb the brunt of the 0:47:05.600 --> 0:47:08.839 of the violence. Yeah, alright, So at this point you're 0:47:08.840 --> 0:47:11.600 you're you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, they're out of time, 0:47:11.680 --> 0:47:13.759 and you you would be right, just as the Aunt 0:47:13.800 --> 0:47:17.320 War is heating up. Uh, we're gonna have to close 0:47:17.320 --> 0:47:19.880 out this episode, but fear not, we're gonna be back 0:47:20.080 --> 0:47:23.360 with a third ant War episode that will more or 0:47:23.440 --> 0:47:26.439 less round everything out. Though a word of warning, if 0:47:26.480 --> 0:47:29.200 I am, if I'm looking at the schedule correctly, there 0:47:29.239 --> 0:47:33.319 will be another episode that will publish before the third 0:47:33.400 --> 0:47:37.080 ant War episode publishes, So just bear with us. The 0:47:37.160 --> 0:47:40.360 third ant War installment is on its way in the meantime. 0:47:40.400 --> 0:47:42.080 If you like to check out other episodes of Stuff 0:47:42.080 --> 0:47:44.239 to Blow Your Mind, you can find us anywhere you 0:47:44.280 --> 0:47:46.759 get your podcast and wherever that happens to be. Just 0:47:46.840 --> 0:47:50.160 make sure you rate, review, and subscribe. Huge thanks as 0:47:50.160 --> 0:47:53.560 always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If 0:47:53.600 --> 0:47:54.960 you would like to get in touch with us with 0:47:55.040 --> 0:47:57.319 feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a 0:47:57.360 --> 0:47:59.400 topic for the future, or just to say hello, you 0:47:59.400 --> 0:48:02.440 can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your 0:48:02.480 --> 0:48:12.840 Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production 0:48:12.920 --> 0:48:15.640 of I Heart Radio for more podcasts for my heart Radio, 0:48:15.880 --> 0:48:18.520 visit the i heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever 0:48:18.560 --> 0:48:31.799 you listening to your favorite shows.