Livescience.com has just posted an article titled “Why Ants Rule the World“. It is surprising and interesting to read.
The facts such as “The combined heft of ants in the Brazilian Amazon is about four times greater than the combined mass of all of the mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians, according to one survey.” and “Nearly all human languages have a word for ant” really surprised me.
There are fighters, carpenters, collectors, queens, workers, etc. in ants. Some even steal babies from other ants’ nests. One peculiar trait is that “female ants do all of the work; males just spread their genes around.”
One particular humorous phrase from the article: “Males are little flying sperm missiles.”