The Ant

Yesterday, I was sitting by a swimming pool and I noticed an ant on the pool deck. It was a regular ant, not a fire ant, just going about its business looking for food. I picked it up by pinching it- not too tightly- as I did not desire to kill it. I looked at the ant, such a small creature, weak against someone gigantic like me but quite strong for its size. I have much respect for ants, as a social insect, their organizational skills and hard work to the maintenance of a colony is very impressive. They have been around for quite some time as well; a quick Google search informed me that they have been around since the mid-cretaceous period, 110 to 130 million years ago! Apparently they evolved from wasps or wasp-like insects and diversified about 100 million years ago. An ant may be small, but they have been known to lift anywhere from 10 to 50 times their own body weight! Just imagine if you could lift that much! We would be Hulks and it would be awesome!

As I had the ant pinched between my thumb and index finger, I carefully ripped both of its antennas with my other hand to observe its behavior after placing it back on the swimming pool deck. To my horror, the poor ant seemed to not know what to do. It seemed very confused and just stayed there, not moving much. I mean, it moved, but it didn’t walk away… I started to feel bad for what I did. I could only deduce that ants’ antennas are very important to their navigation, perhaps picking up pheromones and scents that lead it back to its colony. I hope the ant can forgive me and that a comrade found it and led it back to the colony’s hospital.