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Today we are going to create a disaster scenario, a kind of horror film much like the B-Movies
“Legion of Fire: Killer Ants” or “Empire of the Ants.”
We have some amount of fear of ants for good reason.
It’s said that the most painful sting in the world is that of a bullet ant, and the
pain lasts a while, too.
But there are a few other ants that will cause you considerable pain if they bite you, though
most ants are relatively harmless.
What if every ant though- dangerous and not- suddenly appeared at your doorstep?
Welcome to this episode of the Infographics Show, Could You Survive a Town Packed with
Ants??
As Forbes wrote in 2016,even if you’re not allergic, some ants can kill you pretty quickly.
The Maricopa harvester ant for instance would only take a few hundred stings to kill you.
With other kinds of ants, it would take time for you to die and would be very, very unpleasant.
Ant colonies might be small and only have around 30,000 individuals, but the biggest
ever “super-colony” found in Japan had around 306 million worker ants and one million
queen ants.
As for falling victim to a bullet ant colony, the Forbes article said, “You will likely
pass out from pain after the worst imaginable hour of your life and then succumb to dehydration
or shock.”
So, let’s just agree that you don’t want to be near a mass of these hardworking creatures.
Ok, so today we are talking about all the world’s ants, and they come in different
shapes and sizes.
It’s thought globally there are around 15,000 species (some sources say 12,13 or 14,000),
and some are much more fearsome than others.
Australia’s Bulldog ant is said to be the most dangerous ant out there, and has killed
people within 15 minutes after biting them.
Unlike some other ants, it’s very aggressive.
The Guinness Book of Records writes, “The bull dog ant earned its name because of its
ferocity and determination during an attack.
It is extremely aggressive and shows little fear of human beings, stinging a number of
times in quick succession and therefore injecting more venom with each bite.”
When we are talking about dropping ants on your town, you certainly don’t want to be
in the neighborhood where these little devils move in.
There are 90 species of these large, formic acid-injecting ants, but thankfully for your
town they are not the most common ant in the world by a long margin.
You can actually look at an interactive ant map of the world and see which countries have
the most species.
Many countries in Africa have hundreds of species, but nowhere beats Australia.
Queensland could be renamed Ant-Land.
North America doesn’t have many species, except in some southern U.S. states.
Europe doesn’t have many species either.
The BBC said Argentine ants have taken over the world, spreading their wings and ending
up in most countries.
You will also find Carpenter ants in most parts of the world, and there are 1,000s of
different kinds of them.
They are not too dangerous, but they know how to take over a kitchen.
Other common species are black garden ants, odorous ants and the notorious red fire ant.
You can see photos online of human skin that has been in contact with a colony for just
a few seconds.
These guys mean business, and they are everywhere.
But it really depends on where you live as to what species you’ll be seeing regularly.
Ants generally work in a colony, like a big factory.
They work all day and only ever take power naps as opposed to long sleeps.
They communicate using sounds, touch or with their pheromones.
They have different roles, and like an army they will attack if they feel their colony
and the Queen they are protecting is at risk.
Some ants are even suicidal, going on missions they won’t return from.
Unlike humans, they don’t ask what is the point of all this?
Some ants are more nomadic than others, and some such as the weaver ant live in trees.
Other ants can be very invasive, taking over spaces.
So how many are there?
The BBC says there are around 10,000 trillion ants in the world.
But that’s a hard number to imagine.
Another source says that there are one million ants for every human, and yet another source
says 1.6 million for every human.
Other sources say the weight of all the ants in the world is about equal to that of all
the humans combined.
The BBC disagrees, saying the total weight of humans (then 7.2 billion) was around 332
billion Kgs.
All the ants on the other hand would weigh 40 billion kgs, according to the report.
That’s just less than an eighth of all human weight, so that’s something like 900,000,000
humans.
If that figure is correct, we have ants weighing the same as 900 million humans moving into
your town.
But as there are many species not yet found and there is just no way to know how many
ants there are, let’s just say that these numbers are probably close.
Let’s give you a clearer idea of what this ant invasion would look like.
We found one story that told us how many 3mg ants could be squeezed into a 747 airliner.
The answer was 46.5 billion.
If we take that estimation as true, and if there really are 10,000 trillion ants in the
world, it would mean 2,173 Boeing 747s full of ants would be dropped.
Another person added up how many ants you could fit into the average blue whale, and
by their estimation you have 2624.5 whales full of ants.
That source also used the standard 10,000 trillion ants.
There are already a lot of ants living near you.
A biologist called Rob Dunn has said that there are 5.3 billion ants working in Brooklyn.
In Manhattan he said there are 1.1 billion ants.
You can already see them in many towns if you look down.
Warmer climates often have more ants, and they can be a nuisance in the house, especially
if you tend to leave food out.
10,000 trillion ants in your town would certainly get out of hand.
So what would happen?
Well, ants attack if threatened, and with that many ants around they would attack you.
Even if you are not allergic, you would soon die of shock from all the stings.
Ants tend to dominate the environment they are in.
The only problem for the ants would be the confusion of suddenly appearing without their
colony in another town.
They would turn on each other.
An entomologist at the University of California said this, “Ants will fiercely attack any
ant that is not a member of their colony.”
They know this by smell.
Your town has just turned into a Fortnite Battle Royale for ants.
The prof wrote, “The ant will keep searching for home until she dies of hunger or predator
or cold of night.”
So, foragers, workers, soldiers, will all be looking for home, but there would be so
much confusion many ants would not only be crawling all over you, but they’d be killing
each other in the billions.
We are talking about an Ant-pocalypse.
The best thing you could do is take a load of food and water into a sealed room and wait
for the government to come and collect or exterminate the ants.
Suffice to say, the sudden move into your town would upset the world’s ecosystems.
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What do you think would happen?
What would you do in this scenario?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Worst Punishments in the History of
Mankind!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
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