My home is in the western highlands of Kenya. The land is green with pasture and trees. We enjoy rain and sunshine all year, but sometimes the rain does not fall for weeks, even months. During these times, everyone becomes anxious. We all look up at the skies, we listen to the sounds of crickets, and we watch the birds.
When the rain is about to come again, the insects start migrating into new homes, mating and acting agitated in many other ways. For example, red ants, also called army ants, begin to build new nests. Their behavior during migration is fascinating. If you come across a migrating colony, you will notice a very organized hierarchy of roles. There is the tough-looking guard (soldier), the busy laborer, and the fat lady. The procession is well organized; one could think it was the model the cowboys used to round up their cattle and move them to new pastures.
Cowboys may have learned how to move livestock from Ants
The white ants, on the other hand, show completely different behavior when the rain comes. They begin reinforcing their nests and sending out their females to mate and conquer new territories. Just before the ants fly out of their nests, the laborers come up to the surface to open up little exits. Then, soldiers show up at the exits and stick out their little mandibles ever so menacingly.
When the white ants are finally ready to fly out of their nest, the drama begins. At the exits is a peculiar bottle-neck struggle for freedom. Four or more ants struggle through the exit, climbing over one another and pulling themselves back. Finally, the lucky one to get through leaps into the air and into an unknown fate.
The ants fly out in circles above the nest before taking off toward anything tall in the vicinity – trees, buildings, rocks. After some time, a swarm of ants circle about around a tree, a house or other tall structures. If the ants are successful at mating, a few hours later you will see pairs on the ground looking for soft soil to burrow under. Interestingly, the newly-wed couple does not walk (crawl) hand-in-hand, but in series, with the short, slim male following the longer, fatter female. At this time, they will have shed their wings, exposing their naked, shiny abdomens.
There are many ways whereby the white ants can be unsuccessful. For example, during the struggle to exit the nest, some keep getting pulled back. The struggle wears down others; while others simply get tangled in the grass around the nest. Here, frogs, cats, dogs, and other creatures that feed on ants may also show up to feed on the ants as they leave their nests. Also, people at home have acquired a taste for fried white ants. Still, some ants just fly about blindly into hot surfaces such as iron-roofs or rock surfaces where they desiccate to crispy pellets.
However, the largest threat is perhaps predation by birds. The birds are the happiest when the rain comes. They know that farmers will sow grains. They know that insects will emerge to feed on the verdant pasture. They know there will be plenty.
As the ants circle about looking for mates, the birds perch on nearby hedges, fences, and trees. From here, they swoop down on unsuspecting ants, carry them off to their diners on the trees where feasting is unrestrained. The party goes on until the birds are full or there are no more ants daring enough to fly blindly into the air. Oftentimes, there are too many ants to eat, and the birds fill up before decimating the ants.
Human beings are pretty similar to ants in many ways, a discussion of which is the subject of the science of behavior. I do not wish to engage too deeply in such discourse, but I will make one observation I have found fascinating at college parties.
Sometime back, I was curious about what was happening at one party in one of Yale’s colleges so I went in to take a peek. I entered the dance hall and perched on one of the window ledges facing the exit. From where I was, I could see attendees coming in or going out. I was at the ledge for some half-hour.
There was a group dancing at the center of the room. A few people were leaning on walls drinking from cans of Red Bull. There must have been something other than the energy drink in the cans, because instead of wings those guys must have had weights pulling them down.
The group was performing a dance that required pairing. Because the group remained relatively clustered in a circle, I figured the dance must involve some form of circling around or limited movement. Occasionally, a couple would walk in through the door and join in the dance. Sometimes, single men and women popped into the room to join in the drinking or dancing. The single women especially found dance partners via a strange mechanism. A single dancer in the crowd would “sense” the presence of a single lady in the room and emerge from the crowd to join her. The two would then enter the crowd and dance. This mechanism never failed.
Another less popular mechanism was that someone leaning on the walls would briefly sober-up and take the hand of a single person and join the dancing. Neither mechanism significantly favored single men entering the room.
As I watched, I couldn’t help but draw parallels between birds catching with ants and dancers grabbing their partners.
