Army Ants

Anthony Palmieri
November 20, 1996
Contemporary Science Topics

A quote made by Lewis Thomas, "Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungus, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, and exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television." I am going to focus this report on the part of the quote, "..launch armies into war..," which sets a metaphor of ants and our armies in today's society. Ants have many tactics, so to speak, that are similar to the way our armies have when going to war. Ants have many different roles in their society. One of the main roles that army ants or soldier ants have is that they …show more content…

Their pieces are brought back to the biouvac for food and other sources of energy. As the United States Army is sent from the homeland or base, they are very similar to the way army ants behave. The Army sends a front line, as do ants, which is usually made up of tanks and armed troops. As they advance closer to the site of the attack the front line slows down till a backup force of a second and third line reaches the site. This is very similar to the ants' flanking motion. A presence of the enemy will accelerate the attack from the masses of troops and tanks that were formed. When the enemy has control of the attack slows down and it brings any hostages or injured troops back to the home base. The army ants have a very similar tactic in the presence of prey. Both the army ants and the United States Army have many of the same military tactics when going into war. It is amazing that ants and humans have some of the same styles of launching wars and yet we are very different in
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