Ant Super Colonies

“Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest” (Proverbs 6:6-8).

The latest research into ant supercolonies throws light on the tiny creature’s proverbial industry, described so effectually in God’s Word. The supercolonies were discovered in the 1920s by Dr. Eugene Marais. One of them is “comprised of 33 distinct ant populations living along a 3.7 mile stretch of Mediterranean coast, with more than a billion workers in millions of individual nests” (“The World’s Most Amazing Structures Not Built by Humans,” Gizmodo.com, Mar. 6, 2014). Dr. Louis Fortune excavated a white ant supercolony by pouring 10 tons of cement into the holes. The ant-made tunnels were packed so well that the cement distributed throughout the colony and when the surrounding dirt was removed the entire amazing structure became visible. The ants had “created a complicated subterranean city, with fungus gardens, nurseries, dairy farms, garbage pits, and ventilation networks. It looks like the design of one architect--one single brain--however is was created by a ‘super organism’--the ant colony” (“Giant Termite City Excavated,” Digital Journal, Feb. 15, 2009). “There are subterranean highways connecting the main chambers, and off the main routes are side roads. The tunnels are designed to provide the shortest transport routes.” It is estimated that the ants had moved 40 tons of soil to construct their city. “Billions of ant-loads of soil were brought to the surface, each load weighed four times as much as the worker, and in human terms was carried a kilometer to the surface. It is the equivalent of building the Great Wall of China. It is truly a wonder of the world.”

​(Friday Church News Notes, March 14, 2014, www.wayoflife.org [email protected], 866-295-4143)

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