My husband and I went with our four boys to see the movie Chimpanzee on Memorial Day. This is a Disney documentary with the cutest little chimpanzee! When we asked them their favorite part of the movie, the overwhelming response was "when the chimpanzees ate the ants." Let me tell you why these ants were so interesting.
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| photo courtesy of Mark W. Moffett; national geographic.com | | |
For starters, look at the pincers on that thing! These are army ants, and I certainly wouldn't want to cross their path. The soldier army ant has such strong mandibles, that it can be pulled in two without releasing its hold. In fact, there are some East African tribes that actually use these ants as emergency sutures by having the ant bite on either side of a gash and then break it's body off. Talk about natural medicine!
What was so amazing about the images in the movie were the sheer numbers of ants. Army ants are aggressive foraging groups that overtake an area like a raid. There can be over a million ants in the colony. Unlike other ants, army ants do not construct permanent nests. They build temporary living nests with their own bodies to protect the queen and eggs for a short time. Then the whole colony moves along its way overtaking almost anything in its path. Because of the large numbers of ants moving together, a colony can kill and eat up to 100,000 animals in one day, mostly insects and spiders.
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| Army ants devouring a grasshopper; photo courtesy of Karmesinkoenig; wikipedia.org |
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So, how did the chimpanzee eat them. They used their smarts to make a tool out of a stick. They would find one of the ants' temporary nest and dip the stick into the nest. Any ants that gathered on their tool became dinner. The chimpanzees seemed to enjoy them, but my guys weren't so sure when we asked if they wanted ants on a stick for dinner!
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