Din’s Blog

Uncle Din’s personal blog. It is all about his life, family, travel, vacations, love, romance and his great friends.

And you thought there is nothing great about ants ?

Less than thousand (I guess) members. Exactly twelve hrs, that also night shift. They didn’t waste even a second I am sure. And the result ? A cute fort ! Really nice. You can see how beautiful it is. The design – perfect. Circular shape, one side higher than other (see the side view). Entrance at centre. Four ants will start from the centre every five seconds, they will go near the uppermost point of the fort, then will come back. Making sure no attack will be there in the near future ? Other members might be very busy inside the fort. Call me crazy (even the IRC does it these days !) but it was really nice and interesting watching this.

Side view of the same fort – You can see the difference in height. Now, don’t you think they are really amazing ? And when you sit near and watch, the ants get the signal very fast. Within seconds all the security-staff goes inside, may be passing the warning to message to the top officials ? They came back after about five minutes and continued the duty ! See the material they used, how they collected it, the pattern and distribution of the material. WOW, I am impressed !

While I was watching this, I saw another type of ants making something different near. Not a fort this time, but a nice trench ! That was near our open well. The trench is of about two metres length. Seems they have more entrances and exits throughout it. More than one way might be the idea ! These ants must be really intelligent. As the open well is near, there is chance of a flood any time and if that happens, these multiple entrance / exit combinations will help them to manage things. Good teamwork and great crisis management team.

Lesson learned – Going out and watching these small but amazing things (instead of sitting in front of the computer all the time) is really a nice experience. Yes, I am childish sometimes !

Note : Click on the thumbnail images for enlarged view

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9 comments

Oh there is sooooo much to learn about Ants. My brother has got this huge book called “Ants”. One of the biggest books I’ve seen. And the author claims there is so much more about ants that he couldn’t fit into the book.

Of course, I hate ants. Wish I could make one of them life sized just so I could strangle the wretch.

Posted by Goobimama, on May 12th, 2008, at 4:01 am. #.

LOL

Ants are everywhere in my room, even inside my laptop ! Why do you hate them ? Small little creatures who work hard and does amazing things which sometimes even humans can’t do.

Posted by Din, on May 12th, 2008, at 11:30 am. #.

[...] takes time off his computer and observes the ants. A nice post with some pics. Now, don’t you think they are really amazing ? And when you sit near and watch, [...]

Posted by The Ant Watch at Blogbharti, on May 15th, 2008, at 1:07 pm. #.

Nice post Din. Have you seen the movie Antz from Dreamworks? If you haven’t, you should!

Posted by Jo, on May 15th, 2008, at 1:08 pm. #.

Thank you Jo

No, but I will sure try to see it, I mean the movie.

Posted by Din, on May 15th, 2008, at 1:10 pm. #.

Ants have eaten up my Cellphone, hard drive, bitten me at night, eaten up chocolates, read my private email, flirted with my girlfriend. Why should I like them?

Posted by Goobimama, on May 19th, 2008, at 6:38 am. #.

Reading your email and flirting with your girl friend ? OMG !

In that case you should not leave them

Posted by Din, on May 19th, 2008, at 10:24 am. #.

Watching ants is indeed fun! Last year, just as the flowers bloomed in early spring, i watched ants play hide and seek on the plants! They must have had a lot of fun too!

Posted by mekhala, on May 22nd, 2008, at 6:03 pm. #.

ants are a source of inspiration for me

pretty hard working, never look listless and amazing weight lifting capacity

Posted by T, on June 18th, 2008, at 3:17 pm. #.