[ExI] ants again

[MB]

That is very cool, spike, but boy do they ever bite each
other!  I watched an ant war here a couple years ago. A
nest of little blackish ants and a nest of big reddish
ants.

Now I know the big red ants will bite and sting, they've
gotten me before.  But the little black ants were winning
all over the place.  The big red ants hadn't a chance
against them. I don't quite understand how that happened,
but the little ones would mob the big ones and the big
ones would just curl up and - I guess they died, I'm not
absolutely sure, they might have recovered and gone home,
but I never saw that.

Now here is a question for you: is visiting the saddest
place on earth any good for the person being visited? We
found that at some point it was more detrimental -
upsetting and confusing. The visitee was still aware
enough to know she ought to know but didn't, if you get my
meaning, and it made her frightened.  So the visits had to
stop, because they were not helpful to anyone.

And that makes the visitors feel guilty as all getout. But
what to do?

Warm regards,
MB

> Do pardon the questionable link between ants and anything
> having to do with
> transhumanism, thanks.
>
>
>
> Today I saw something so cool I can't understand it.  I
> longed to have
> Anders present to explain it, the man who so generously
> gave me a treasured
> bug book.
>
>
>
> I was in the saddest place on earth, and after a couple
> hours I just needed
> a break, so I went out walking about the grounds and
> noticed a huge ant war
> going on, so I decided to watch, pick a team, cheer them
> on, that sorta
> thing.  As I did so, an idea occurred to me.  Ants are
> related to bees, and
> I know that when bees are swarming, they will not sting.
> You can scoop them
> with your bare hands, they won't sting; I never did get a
> sting fooling with
> swarming bees.  The war these gals were doing reminds one
> a bit of swarming
> bees, so I wondered what would happen if I tried to handle
> them.
>
>
>
> I figured it was worth the risk of a few ant bites or
> stings or both (they
> are two different things with ants, for they have both a
> mechanical bite
> with their powerful mandibles and a sting on their abdomen
> tip analogous to
> a bee sting.)  So I held my hand in the midst of the ant
> war and hoped for
> the best.  Not one ant took the least bit of interest in
> stinging or biting
> me.  So I scooped up a wad of them.  Some of them wandered
> about on my hands
> and up my arm, but they were more interested in finding an
> opposing ant to
> fight than to bite me.
>
>
>
> I know for sure ants will sting and bite if you mess with
> their nest, so I
> went over to one of the holes and put my finger right in
> the stream going
> out.  They went around it.  So I figured I now at least
> had the scent of the
> bad guys on my finger, so I went over to the good guy's
> nest, and offered
> them a bite.  But no takers.  I fooled with those ants for
> several minutes
> longer than is proper for a grown man to mess with a bunch
> of damn bugs, but
> never did I get a single bite or sting.  So I went and got
> my son, and
> demonstrated the experiment again, and again no bites, no
> stings.
>
>
>
> Conclusion: warring ants don't bite humans.  Only each
> other.
>
>
>
> In these photos you can see pairs of ants going at each
> other, and singleton
> ants looking for an enemy:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> You can scoop them right up, no bites, no stings:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Happy solstice!
>
>
>
> spike
>
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