We often have the idea that insects function like pre-programmed robots. Our study provides new evidence that, on the contrary, ants also learn from their experiences and can hold a grudge.
Dr. Volker Nehring, Department of Evolution and Ecology, University of Freiburg
Not to go all Julio Iglesias on you, but of all the bugs I’ve ever stomped I think I’ve derived the greatest satisfaction from crushing ants. They’re small, so you don’t get much of a mess on your shoes. They’re not that fast, so they can’t scurry away, as silverfish do. And they don’t have stingers, unlike hornets, wasps and Yellowjackets.
Plus, ants make little monuments for you to destroy. Your typical anthill looks like a scene out of a jungle island movie, or maybe a primitive burial mound of the kind you see driving through the midwest. You can vent your anger on hundreds of little critters in one fell stomp, putting you in a class with Godzilla.
Have I ever experienced any remorse about my senseless slaughter of what the dictionary defines as “eusocial insects of the family Formicidae”? Not really. Carpenter ants did a number on the first house I owned, and I don’t even think they belonged to the union. Fire ants, like killer bees, are always a looming threat to move from more temperate regions to the Northeast where I live; if global warming is a fact, our cold climate up here may prove as illusory as the Maginot Line as a bulwark of defense against them.
It was therefore with a melange of surprise, disappointment–even a little umbrage and a dash of marjoram–that I looked across the breakfast nook and saw a rather angry ant, staring me down as I dug into my second bowl of granola and bananas.
“Can I help you?” I asked innocently, my stock response when someone violates a social norm I have chosen to observe rather than ignore.
“You could help me, if you weren’t such a useless hunk of meat,” it–I’m not so versed in ant anatomy that I can distinguish the sex of one of the little critters without a microscope–replied.
“Is there a problem?”
“Yes, there’s a problem,” it said as it poked at a sticky spot on the counter. “I come to avenge the destruction you wreaked . . .”
“Don’t you mean ‘wrought’?”
“Either is acceptable,” it said as it plunked down on four of its six legs. “As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted–do you remember a fine summer day, oh, about 1957, the sidewalk along Harrison Avenue between Broadway and 9th Street?”
“I know the spot well, but I’m not sure what historical event you’re referring to.”
“You wouldn’t, any more than the damn Yankees give a second thought to Sherman’s March to the Sea, or the Russians give a baguette about Napoleon’s failed invasion. History is written by the victors . . .”
“Who said that?”
“Pretty sure it was Yogi Berra.”
“Ding dong, you’re wrong. Its first use in the United States was by Missouri state senator George Graham Vest . . .”
“The guy who coined the phrase ‘Man’s best friend is his dog‘?”
“The same. Anyway, enough about me–what exactly is your problem?”
“You’re not the brightest bulb on the scoreboard. You stomped my ancestors to death, and I’m here to exact revenge!”
“I would never give anyone inexact revenge–it’s like asking for two tens for a five in change.”
“Enough with the smart-alecky remarks. I want my pound of flesh!”
Have to say, I was mightily impressed with that snappy comeback. “It’s not every ant I meet who knows Shakespeare.”
“I got here through your bookcases in the basement.”
I thought I saw his eyes roll to the right for a second to look out on our view of the woods. Sensing an opening, I smacked my hand down on the counter, but as Sam Cooke sings in “Bring it On Home to Me,” I only hurt myself.
“Ow!”
“You dope–didn’t you know that ants have two sets of eyes? I saw that one coming a mile away.”
“All right. What is it–exactly–that you want?”
“You can’t bring the dead back, so I want to honor them in the present . . . and the future.”
“Okay, but how?”
He/she inhaled, then looked off into the distance. “I want you to build an Eternal Ant Hill on the site of the massacre.”
“I have maybe two decades left to live. How am I going fund it in perpetuity?”
It scratched its little chin with one of its forelegs. “Well, you could assign the royalties from your snarky little e-book ‘Wild Animals of Nature‘ to a foundation created to maintain it forever.”
I laughed a mirthless laugh. “Ha ha.”
“What’s so god-damned funny?”
“The gross revenue from one of my little on-line penny dreadfuls is about thirty-four cents . . . a decade.”
Available in Kindle format on amazon.com as part of the collection “Wild Animals of Nature.”