“Leiningen!” he shouted.
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“Leiningen!” he shouted. “You’re insane! They’re not creatures you can fight–they’re an elemental–an ‘act of God!’ Ten miles long, two miles wide–ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a fiend from hell; before you can spit three times they’ll eat a full-grown buffalo to the bones.
From "Leiningen Versus the Ants" 1938
Ants love that this is how powerful people think they are.
Leiningen and the ants is a very silly story, but I like some of the themes in it. Dude hears the above warning from the locals and thinks "nah I'm going to fight the ants"
He gets eaten, obviously.
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The only true part of this is "They’re not creatures you can fight" fighting army ants is not worth it. They won't be around long, they have places to be and insects to eat. (and maybe a slow lizard or mouse or two)
They will not strip you to the bone before you can "spit three times"
Just let the girls pass.
@futurebird growing up around fire ants it made sense to me that they wouldn't care about target size, because fire ants don't. Most ants recognize the scale difference between themselves and a human and don't try to start trouble, but fire ants are just like "flesh? STING STING STING"
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Leiningen and the ants is a very silly story, but I like some of the themes in it. Dude hears the above warning from the locals and thinks "nah I'm going to fight the ants"
He gets eaten, obviously.
@futurebird rip to them but I'm built different
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@futurebird rip to them but I'm built different
Built like a skeleton now that the ants are done with ye.
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Leiningen and the ants is a very silly story, but I like some of the themes in it. Dude hears the above warning from the locals and thinks "nah I'm going to fight the ants"
He gets eaten, obviously.
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Leiningen and the ants is a very silly story, but I like some of the themes in it. Dude hears the above warning from the locals and thinks "nah I'm going to fight the ants"
He gets eaten, obviously.
@futurebird I've heard about the marabunta as a kid, it featured somehow in several shows or things I happened to watch.
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“Leiningen!” he shouted. “You’re insane! They’re not creatures you can fight–they’re an elemental–an ‘act of God!’ Ten miles long, two miles wide–ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a fiend from hell; before you can spit three times they’ll eat a full-grown buffalo to the bones.
From "Leiningen Versus the Ants" 1938
Ants love that this is how powerful people think they are.
@futurebird If I'm not mistaken, there is a McGuyver episode loosely based on that story - spoiler alert - he wins.
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@futurebird If I'm not mistaken, there is a McGuyver episode loosely based on that story - spoiler alert - he wins.
That sounds so goofy. I need to find it.
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@futurebird If I'm not mistaken, there is a McGuyver episode loosely based on that story - spoiler alert - he wins.
"the unexplained rare awakening of the marabunta, massed colonies of billions of soldier ants who form armies miles wide and long, unstoppable and capable of devouring anything, devastating the whole landscape from grass and grasshoppers to cattle and towering trees."
Grass, cattle, trees... the fabric of reality...
OMG I hope there are bad special effects of trees just falling over like the ants are the langoliers out of that stephen king story.
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That sounds so goofy. I need to find it.
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Leiningen and the ants is a very silly story, but I like some of the themes in it. Dude hears the above warning from the locals and thinks "nah I'm going to fight the ants"
He gets eaten, obviously.
@futurebird the story is very silly and rather colonialist but the thing I find very funny about it is that in the Clojure community they named the build tool everyone uses "Leiningen" ("lein" on the command line) because it helps you cope with bazillions of ants. ("ant" being the name of one of the other Java build tools.)
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The only true part of this is "They’re not creatures you can fight" fighting army ants is not worth it. They won't be around long, they have places to be and insects to eat. (and maybe a slow lizard or mouse or two)
They will not strip you to the bone before you can "spit three times"
Just let the girls pass.
@futurebird Don't people in South America actually let the ants just pass through the house because it cleans out all of the insects that have been hiding in there?
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@futurebird Don't people in South America actually let the ants just pass through the house because it cleans out all of the insects that have been hiding in there?
Yes, this is also what happens in SE Asia and Africa.
The "army ant syndrome" is probably and example of convergent evolution. So to the best human reaction to it (just let them pass)
The ants on both sides of the Atlantic are superficially similar but not very closely related.
* Majors with large jaws
* Colonies numbering in the 100,000s
* Massive queens who lay thousands of eggs a day.
* Do not build a nest.
* Blind
* Move in columns that fan out and converge. -
Yes, this is also what happens in SE Asia and Africa.
The "army ant syndrome" is probably and example of convergent evolution. So to the best human reaction to it (just let them pass)
The ants on both sides of the Atlantic are superficially similar but not very closely related.
* Majors with large jaws
* Colonies numbering in the 100,000s
* Massive queens who lay thousands of eggs a day.
* Do not build a nest.
* Blind
* Move in columns that fan out and converge.@futurebird "Let them pass"
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Yes, this is also what happens in SE Asia and Africa.
The "army ant syndrome" is probably and example of convergent evolution. So to the best human reaction to it (just let them pass)
The ants on both sides of the Atlantic are superficially similar but not very closely related.
* Majors with large jaws
* Colonies numbering in the 100,000s
* Massive queens who lay thousands of eggs a day.
* Do not build a nest.
* Blind
* Move in columns that fan out and converge.More than any other species of ants those that live as army ants seem like a super-organism.
The biomass of an army ant colony is similar to a badger or fox. And each colony has a territory that it patrols, curling up into a ball of ants to sleep in the hollow of trees at night.
The ants can sense light and dark, but they have no eyes. In both cases these have been lost. But the whole colony is "aware" of animals, predators and the topology of their world.
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Yes, this is also what happens in SE Asia and Africa.
The "army ant syndrome" is probably and example of convergent evolution. So to the best human reaction to it (just let them pass)
The ants on both sides of the Atlantic are superficially similar but not very closely related.
* Majors with large jaws
* Colonies numbering in the 100,000s
* Massive queens who lay thousands of eggs a day.
* Do not build a nest.
* Blind
* Move in columns that fan out and converge.@futurebird @Wyatt_H_Knott I misread this as "army aunt syndrome", and now I want to learn more.
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More than any other species of ants those that live as army ants seem like a super-organism.
The biomass of an army ant colony is similar to a badger or fox. And each colony has a territory that it patrols, curling up into a ball of ants to sleep in the hollow of trees at night.
The ants can sense light and dark, but they have no eyes. In both cases these have been lost. But the whole colony is "aware" of animals, predators and the topology of their world.
Made a correction as they tend to be nocturnal.
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