Ants: What The Hell Are These Things, Anyway? Ant-Rant, Ant-Facts and Ant-Lore

Awesome! S+F

Very Interesting read. I too have always been fascinated with these little beings.

It seems tyranny even exists in the Ant world. As even they are now being chipped.

worldradio.ch...

I just wondered if anyone has tried radionics to remove ants from the home?

Sounds strange I know, but I use it on cockroaches and we rarely see any now. Xoanon - May be a good experiment to try an area around your cat bowl and see if we can keep it clear of ants, or another area to begin with, to see if it is effective. message me if interested. Q

ive been looking for a link online but cant find it, but there was a japanese hospital that copied ant hill structure techniques to form natural air conditioning. I believe it has something to do with an opening on the top and bottom of the hospital. If anyone finds a link Id like to see it.

Oh and btw if you want to get rid of ants just mix a little dishsoap and water in a spray bottle.

reply to post by Xoanon


Great thread! I'm from Texas and learned the hard way about fire ants when I was 2, I'm 33 now and can still remember it. Needless to say it wasn't pleasant and I took the opportunity when I was young to blow them up whenever I could.

reply to post by Xoanon

YES! I hate those little orange-red ant bastards! We had them at our home near the southern California coast years ago. And I was ill and couldn't tolerate sprays, so I used Windex on them, but they kept coming. And, of course, our walls turned blue. They had these razor teeth that chewed through packaging in the cupboards, ate holes in all your underwear (they were fond of bodily fluids - ick!), and my favorite little 6 plus 1 CD FM Stereo disc-changer boombox was destroyed when they infiltrated the device and for some reason found God knows what highly edible inside - was it the glue? Cardboard? WHAT???? And they BITE, too, little tiny razor teeth trying to eat you, those things are relentless. We happened to have this rental duplex home that had wood ceilings, and between each piece of wood they would bore their way in and trail down the walls. Finally, my husband caulked the hundreds of feet of cracks between the boards with clear caulk to try to stem the tide. I was SO glad when we moved. Never got over my stereo, though, it was a hard to get item at the time (1995). I feel for you, I do. My favorite bug killer right now is called DEADLINE BUG BAIT, and it comes in a tall cardboard cylinder with a shaker top on it, green and yellow label. I paid under $10 for it, and I looked all over town to find a place that carries it since I hadn't had it in a while. Finally found some at a Walmart in the garden area. It works on all the bugs and snails out there, ants, earwigs, pill bugs, etc. It is sort of like sawdust, and you water, then sprinkle it around on the moist areas to make them come for it. It required redo-ing every week or 10 days, depending on your need, but it's the best thing for me since it's very effective, and doesn't have to be sprayed all over and poison everything. It is a poison, but I feel it is safer than others in some ways. It says on there that it remains effective after rain or sprinkling, too. Not that we are getting much of that right now. Good luck! Here's a link to it, too: www.doitbest.com...

whats so funny is for so long i have taken the executioner mentality, looking at it like war. And from the looks of it many other people here do too, now i know for sure im not insane for having a feeling of desolation when i see that counter top full of dead ants..I always thought it was that movie ants that made me look at it like a warzone.

I loved this thread.

I saw this thread this morning but couldn't read it because I had to get to work. I had just mowed down a huge line of sugar ants in my living room when I found your thread. They are invading my living space! I feel horrible killing them but I really dont want them in my kitchen, cats food bowl or my living room. I found out where they were coming in and their little trail through my living area. One ended up going to a tiny piece of cereal and the other to my briefcase, nothing was in it yet they seemed to be attracted to it.

When I was a kid we had bull ants and fire ants in our back yard, they were bad. I believe the bull ants would build these huge ant hills and nothing stopped them but bleach. My mom had to dump bleach down the hole to get the to go away and many times they were back a few months later but those little stinkers hurt when they bit and it wasn't a nice feeling afterwards.

I still dont mind ants though, they are ten times better than roaches and spiders. I'd actually rather deal with ants over the others. Spider scare me to death and roaches creep me out.

So I did put some ant killer at their entrance by the patio screen and at the sliding door corner. I dont mind sharing my porch with them but not the inside of my house. I hope they go away in the next couple days.


This thread was very informative on ants. I never knew all this about the various ants nor the lore behind them. Thanks for this thread and thanks for the laughs. I even shared this thread on my FB and mentioned it to my co worker today. I thought it was a really good one and the type of threads I enjoy.

S&F

Right. This is exactly the kind of thing I come to ATS for. Interesting, informative, educational and strange.

Here is a selection of ant shots from photographer Andrey Pavlov. He observes ants in their natural habitat, then places obstacles in their path and photographs their interaction with these objects.

www.telegraph.co.uk...

reply to post by 0zzymand0s


really good pictures!!
ants are pretty cool really..as long as they stay outside.

naughty ants

This was a fantastic read. S&F for effort, content, format and general wordsmithiness.

Did you happen to see that massive hive they dumped a ton of cement into? They let it harden and then excavated all the earth away from it revealing a mind-boggling network of cave systems. Not only to the little buggers know how to farm but they're also apparently able to adequately ventilate their subterranean systems of various and sundry gasses.

Crazy stuff indeed.

Originally posted by Xoanon

What Really Concerns Me about The Little #ers

And so after all of the above that is why I have to ask: what the hell are they, anyway? Some higher form of insect? Or something else? There are more of them then there are of us. They must be aware of this if their tactic for just about everything is to overwhelm. I wish it could be like a science fiction novel and that we could somehow tune in to the Argentine Ant Hive-Overmind, or whatever, and somehow divine or ask their/its purpose.

Because, you see, I am concerned that we have missed the point concerning ants. That we were supposed to learn some lesson that we are not learning. That our pointless ( so pointless, against their numbers and geography) war with the ants is symbolic for our repeated inability to learn core stuff that would be essential for our survival.

In the Hopi creation story, the ants actually starve themselves to feed us as food begins to run out. It is said that that is the reason that they have such a narrow waist to this day. I can't help but think of that sort of thing as I decimate the ants as they try to get at food that I have thrown away. So I am concerned that we continue to mindlessly trample on some lesson we are supposed to be getting, part of which may very well have to do with wasting food.

I am also concerned that I will cease to give a #. It was so bad this year that I almost got there. But what would that have been like? I actually saw these #ers begin to colonize My home! Very strategically, with forward forces taking up temporary holding positions, 'swell' tactics used to seemingly overwhelm my weak resistance overnight. And what would I tell people? “Oh, those are just the ants, no point in trying to stop them, have a seat.”

So I am killing them again. It is nearly over. Their numbers have dwindled greatly from the great streams from two days ago. I watch the final stragglers nibbling on the poison I have left out for them and I can't help but wonder about all of this. Why must it go on? The numbers in which they are willing to die for kitty-food-gribbles just chills me to the bone; like they are throwing some lesson right in our faces.

Because it is inevitable. I would like to go over eradication strategies later, I have learned much and have a few tricks to offer. I see no alternative.

I would also love to hear all of your stories and antecdotes as well. Thanks, ATS.

Hey man sounds like you got bug problem.

But seriously I'm with you. These things are almost spooky. They do seem to occupy a respected place in a lot of religious thought. They are always kind of benign, used as examples of how to be. I think they might be more than that. I think they might run it. We exist at their leisure. They could wipe us out if they wanted. Look at that guy's leg and you've seen the Tarzan movies. Imagine, at night when you're asleep, they eat you. You don't stand a chance. Thankfully, we don't seem to be their favorite food. They seem well built, well designed. They may well have a leg up up on us. Ants the new plan. Of course, we have chemicals

I think small has something to do with it. Look at fungi Now there's a colony of very small parts acting as one entity

Anyway, I'm with you, I don't like them and my wife absolutely hates them, and drives me crazy when she sees them, and I got to kill them, and that's a real chore.

Sorry I got no pictures, to post.

Good luck with your bug problem.

I was swarmed by fire ants once, they stung me all over. Since then I have had an all consuming hatred of ants. They are as bad as cockroaches as far as I am concerned. I would rather have spider in my house.

I don't know if anyone has added this or not, but apparently if you put a line of nutmeg accross the threshold of your doors, ants won't cross it. Good luck.

reply to post by Eidolon23
just watched that whole phase IV movie. it was awesome! thanks for recomending it

I remember marvelling at these little fellars throughout my youth... so strong, so organised and so busy. Building their little ant hills up against a tree in the forest.

But then came adulthood and as we human encroach further on nature, there's been a little war going on, at first without us knowing it.
The result is that what was virtually my dads ant free garden 10 years ago, is now an infestation of little burrows here and there. His terrace is visibly sinking to one side where the ants decided to nest under the hot slabs of stone.
Other places the lawn has little almost invisible mounts which are soft when you walk on them. At inspection you can see how the grass is alive with activity.

The same is going on at all his neighbours and the road leading into the housing area.

What I once was fascinated about I now dread.... Humans expansion leads to ant's destruction of property. A while I do believe that we should give room to nature, I admit... I spent a couple of days watering his terrace and lawn with Baythion and just in time as the queens were about to swarm and create more devastation.

They are magnificent creatures, but we have made them destructive

Originally posted by smilesmcgee
I don't know if anyone has added this or not, but apparently if you put a line of nutmeg accross the threshold of your doors, ants won't cross it. Good luck.

This was true with cinnamon once as well... I guess the f'ers adapt fast. Poison that targets the ants alone are the way. The "good" thing about Baythion is that the ants don't die right away, they carry the poison down into the burrow and spread it to their queens, brood and fellow workers.

I have been on this site for some time and I must say this is one of the very best threads I have ever had the pleasure of reading. I actually learned quite a lot.

To the OP: Thank you, you have a rare gift...

Originally posted by nine11
There is something magical about small insects. Like California's black widow that used to kill 5% of all bite victims b4 better medicine was available. A spider ending the life of a human being???

Just a little correction, spiders are not insects, they are arachnids.

Originally posted by IandEye
lastly- you can buy bacteria online called NEMATODES and water them into the ground...two times I think. They'll eat ants and termites and lots of other things too. It's a much more 'natural' massacr
good luck!

Are you sure they are nematodes? If they are, then they are not bacterias, as Nematodes are not bacteria, they are worms. Some are microscopic, but they are still worms.

reply to post by Xoanon


A couple of days ago, I was thinking about ants myself. In the uk, every year we see a display of flying ants bumbling around trying to find mates, apparently to start new hives. Do all species of ant do this?

Interesting article from the BBC adding more mystery to these colonial critters.

This seasonal appearance occurs when the ants embark on their "nuptial" flight. This mating ritual happens on roughly the same day across the country, with some regions following a day or two afterwards.

For the ants it is the first step in founding new colonies. So how do they know which day it will happen?

Who What Why: How do flying ants know it's mating day?


Amazing thread Xoanon, thank you for posting.