Giant Ant Hill Excavated, Are we that much different Collectively?

A giant ant colony is pumped full of concrete, then excavated to reveal the complexity of its inner structure.

If you listen to the audio description, you will hear how they consider this build a "collective" creation of their city.

Do we not do the same thing basically? If one were to look down on us from space, would they not see the same thing of us?

In the realm of things, ie., the big picture, what really separates us from them?

Lol, forget the brain thinking process here, I just thought it was a pretty cool video to share as I have a roommate obsessed with killing the fire ants on the property. Almost seems like a no win deal now, but I wont tell them that...

Ok ok.. if anyone watched the video.
"Warning" ants died, but for science..
This ant structure puts a mole hill to shame. My goodness that is huge. 😰

The ant farm is as large as my house... in square feet.

Thanks OP! Even the smallest things in life are Great in numbers😊

Edit.. they might have an acre or 2 to fill.. man alive that's awesome...👍

Comparing humans to ants is an insult to ants.

ps that video is fricken amazing

originally posted by: BigScaryStrawman
Comparing humans to ants is an insult to ants.

ps that video is fricken amazing

Goemelectrically spatial.. or build it and ATS will comment! 😁 yep spelled wrong

Goes metric

And spatial..


Outside captureing panstarr...look ATS... look up now and then. Then look down...life is sooooo awesome...

Ok.. love this thread. I'm the small guy in here.

Ant's built this!😆

Edit.. it takes a family...👍

I have often thought similar things.

Like - what if 'we' are just molecules of the wart on the butt of some other creature? What if 'the universe' we see - is this wart on the ass of - something else?

And we have no way of knowing.

We are self centric and view what we see in relation to our own way of thinking. What if what we think is all wrong?

It could be too - because looking at things through a microscope - you look at a drop of water, it looks like a "universe" in there. Imagine the creatures in there, such as a Rotifer - it may think the drop of water it inhabits is 'the universe'.

We all might be microscopic amoebas in some wart on the ass of some animal. Or we might be particulates in the gas expelled from said animal. Or something else entirely.

And we have (presently) no way of knowing what we exactly are nor what all this exactly "is".

It does drive me crazy! As a tech person - I want to see all the drawings and know how it all fits together and works.

And maybe the Rotifers as well as anything else, a Jellyfish - they wish to know, too? Maybe an 02 molecule, in the air, contemplates these things too?

And it is maddening to try to "figure it all out".

Nice to know others appreciate this as much as I.
I can't help think how similar we are just on different scales.
Apparently they voted for a woman long before we will.
Oh wait, she's a queen, that's old school, lol never mind...

a reply to: FalseMove
I have traveled that road myself, and you are quite correct, it IS Maddening. Just hard to deny the parallels when they present themselves in plain sight.

a reply to: onehuman

This is a very intriguing video. Thank you for sharing it with us! I find this fascinating that the ant--like us can create such outrageously amazing civilizations for such a small organism. If this is the equivalent to the Great Wall of China (in "ant form"), the amount of effort and concentration it must take to build such a structure is phenomenal. To most people these organisms are "nothing", but nasty little insects, but in a sense they live similarly to us as society. They have different ways of communication and break their back to establish a home for themselves. It's outstanding to see something so seemingly small creating something worthwhile. Congratulations to all those little ants.

a reply to: Flannel

The difference between these anthills & the Great Wall of China is that there are probably billions of these cities just sitting in the earth underneath us. We are nothing compared to them.

interesting video, i seen people on youtube doing this with aluminum on a smaller scale.

a reply to: BigScaryStrawman

Good point. It'd be magnificent to see the possible world that lives beneath us, but that wouldn't be beneficial to the organisms underneath at the same time. The way they form their structures (going by this video) seem to be complex yet beautiful at the same time.

That is one big a** ant hill. Makes me happy about my seemingly small ant hill in my garden, haha.

Just thought I'd share this: news.bbc.co.uk...

Researchers have found 3 mega-colonies om 3 different continents who seem to be related to eachother. We are talking about BILLIONS possibly TRILLIONS of ants in connected colonies along 6.000 kilometers (in Europe) and hundreds of kilometers in the US and Japan.

Ants are underestimated in the eyes of man. Can't help but be in awe of their organization and constructions.

a reply to: theboarman

As I do think this is beautiful at the same time I cringe a little bit. I know that they're just ants and what not and it sparks curiousness inside us, but it seems to be a little cruel to destroy the hard work those ants have put their time into. Not to say there isn't plenty more to be found. It's a magnificent sight. But in a slight way it's kind of sad to see at the same time imo.

a reply to: Flannel

That's exactly how I feel.
We are below ants. Why?
We build and destroy for nothing. They simply build.

Like as cool as it is, we just destroyed that "city"
I don't really care how awesome it is at the end of the day. We just destroyed their world, and for what?

In no way am I downplaying the amazingness of Ants, ever seen two different species or competing colonies fight it out? Truely a sight.

War and construction is where our likeness ends. Ants don't really think and the method of construction is hardwired into them, they have literally for millions upon millions of years. In a sense ants are our complete opposites who've came to the same kind of survival conclusion. We are very individual and evolved around that where ants are more like a hivemind.

Ants are amazing. The inventors of farming and air conditioning.

a reply to: mikkelno

Those are the ants I saw wage war on the local ant population in eastern Spain. It's fascinating how the are tolerant of each other of the same species... Basically adopting strays of the same species.

The first truely social ant species?

a reply to: Flannel

My thoughts exactly.It's quite sad-A FB site I have,"Animal Cognition" popped up a story that ants may be self-aware...trying to clean off a spot of paint that had been applied to their exoskeleton.They were shown it in a mirror.

I'm sure there was a non-invasive way of doing this.😕

a reply to: onehuman

Wow that's awesome! Kudos to the folks who did this. I imagine something along those lines is what the area outside of our office looks like. By June it looks like the surface of the moon. I can only imagine the underground component - well, now I can do a bit more than imagine! Great video, thanks for sharing!

a reply to: TheFatedOutsider

I was discussing this with my buddy, we were just contemplating on if there's another alternative to ripping up the ant hills. Such as; checking if the ant hill is active or abandoned, which can probably easily be done. My thought immediately after this given suggestion though is that in the first video they probably wanted something significantly bigger in comparison to your "average" (?) anthill for most likely scientific purposes.

As for the second video it kind of feels as if their just doing it for personal purposes and maybe individual study. I will say this though, the aluminum looks amazing for an outline of an anthill structure. I would have personally never thought to use a more foreign substance for this.