I have no quarrel with ants. They don't eat my apples, tunnel through Desiree's flower garden, or leave bear-sized footprints around the cabin. They simply go about their business with a seriousness that would make a tax auditor proud.
I've
occasionally watched one struggling across the driveway with something
impossibly large balanced over its head. A pine needle. Half a grasshopper. A
crumb of unknown origin. The little brute seems entirely unconcerned that its
burden outweighs it many times over.
Consider.
If
an ant were the size of a human, it could lift a pickup truck. It could carry a
small car on its back or drag a loaded moving van. It could bite through wood,
climb the side of a skyscraper without hesitation, and, if its speed scaled
with its stride, race down the interstate at well over 100 miles per hour. An
ant, in a single leap, could clear an entire football field. It could tumble
from a towering height, stand up, dust itself off, and continue on its way.
We
should probably count ourselves lucky that ants never scaled up to such a size.
There would be no live-trapping them and hauling them out to the woods. At that
point, I'd probably just move.
—Mitchell
Hegman
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