Saturday, April 24, 2010

Ants

Every spring the carpenter ants start trying to take over my house. It's quite annoying, especially when someone - who shall remain nameless - likes to leave glasses that have held juice just sitting out on the kitchen counter without rinsing them (and why not put them in the dishwasher that is right there?). Used juice glasses are like crack for ants. And they're those big black ants that are so fat you can see every individual section of their body and that makes them look extra creepy and they seem to have an innate defensive mechanism because they will RUN when a paper towel is heading in their direction.

They don't really seem to learn, though. If you leave the smushed-up carcass of one lying around as a lesson to the others they do not heed it or even try to drag the body away for a proper burial. Even if they show up together it's every ant for themselves when the killing starts. You always hear about how ants are so great at working together; but, I'm telling you, they don't live up to their PR in my kitchen.

This is from a report my son did in the 2nd grade: 1. Did you know army ants live in tropical jungles because they do. 2. A lot of ants together is so strong they can beat a black beetle. 3. And speaking of strong, it takes only two ants to lift one fat caterpillar.

Does that mean that one ant could lift a thin caterpillar?

2 comments:

Faith Draper aka byfaithonly said...

Hi Stacey - afraid I'm kinda brain dead this morning and can't for the life of me find a way to contact you so decided to take the easy way out and possibly look stupid for the world - public display of my slowness!

I have a question for you that is driving me crazy - Are you the Stacey DuFord author of the book "The Fairy Painting"?

Stacey said...

Yes, I am!

And I've contacted people through the comments sections LOTS of times!!