Ant Wars!

For at least three days the bloody battles ragged on the front steps of my house. I'm embarrassed to say that at first I did not notice the carnage and atrocities taking place on my own property. One day, after walking the dog, I noticed a step on my walkway was completely covered with ants. I assumed that they had found a juicy bit of something there. We usually use our back door, so for several days I was blind to the true nature of the events that were occurring.

Later that week, I went out to water the plants at the front of the house. I noticed that the ants, though less of them this time, were still at it. Now, instead of completely covering the step, they took up about a third of the area. Back to watering...In the garden I noticed several ant hills were surrounded with little black things. When I leaned into investigate I discovered the truth of what was happening in my own front yard. Every ant hill in my garden was surrounded by dead bodies of fallen ants.

At first, I was startled. Had there been some sort of mass poisoning? Could whatever killed all these thousands of ants threaten the health and welfare of our dear puppy Brutus? Then I went back to the huge congregations of ants on my step. What were they up too? It was then that I noticed that the ants were not just congregating. They were, in fact, three deep. Crawling on each other, pushing each other, attacking each other. It seemed that a major objective was to throw each other off the side of our step. There was a full on ant war going on on my front steps!

I had seen ant wars once before in my life, back when I was in the Minnesota Conservation Corps. Big ants were fighting small ants. Big ants would climb up a pillar and dive off of it into the middle of small ants. One big ant was stronger then the small ants for sure, but three small ants could rip apart a big one. It was horrifying and intriguing at the same time. Also, slightly comforting that our species was not along on our planet in trying to destroy itself through war.

This battle was between the same kind of ants. Both small. How did they tell who was on which side? What was the battle over? Were they in fact battling over the territory that I considered my property? Were they battling over control of my front garden? Who won? Our the ants in my garden the ones that have always been there or invaders who took over their territory.

You could watch the ants thrown off the step (that survived the fall) march right back into battle. Were they afraid? Did some flee? Did they feel a sense of duty and courage?


The battle site. One step on the walkway going up to our house.

Dead bodies of fallen soilders surrounding ant holes: