TOW #29 Ants Compared to Humans

     One of the major arguments of Ants: Nature's Secret Power is that ants are just as successful, if not moreso, a species than humans. While underestimated because of their dimunitive size, ants have a tremendous presence in world ecosystems and dramatically alter their landscape and the animals around them. While their direct impacts are not as clearly visible as the ravaging domination of people, ants are certainly as influential a force and as successful a species as we believe ourselves to be.
      Humans are an extremely new species in the world, as our species evolved only about 50,000 years ago. Ants have proven themselves over a much larger span of about 130 million years on the planet. Whereas most large animals experienced a massive extinction event about 65 million years ago, ants continued to survive and eventually thrive. The longevity of the ant, and its ability to spread to all seven continents in the form of 14,000 different species is a clear indicator of the success of the organism.
     One can also measure the "success" and "influence" of an animal based on its impact on the environment around it. Humans have enormous agricultural industries that have selected and bred plants and animals to feed and serve us. We have tapped environmental resources for our own use. But so have ants. As demonstrated in the documentary, ants farm, garden, and reap the rewards of their stocks. When in Honduras I saw an enormous colony of leaf cutter ants. Their colony was so massive that it had worn tracks in the dirt during its leaf-cutting process. In South American fields, these same ants can decimate fields that humans try so desperately to maintain and develop. Additionally, in Ants: Nature's Secret Power, ants were seen carrying tree resin to their homes in order to use it as a disinfectant. Ants can harness and control their environment in the same way humans do, but have been doing so for tens of millions of years more. Their organizations are so effective that plants have even evolved to house ants because their influence is such a positive attribute that it is selected for in the slow and painstaking process of adaptation.
     Humans also prize their ability for innovation. However, ants too have amassed significant biological and engineering feats. Ants have created systems of air conditioning, create vast structures in dirt, sand, and wood, are able to manipulate their bodies to store food for each other, create floating rafts or flowing liquids, and are massively strong (capable of clinging to glass at forces that would kill humans and able to carry 50 times their own body weight). Ants have developed their world and bodies to make themselves more successful, and represent natural ingenuity comparable to that of humans.