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Army Ants Essay example

Decent Essays

Army Ants

Anthony Palmieri
November 20, 1996
Contemporary Science Topics

A quote made by Lewis Thomas, "Ants are so much like human beings as to be an embarrassment. They farm fungus, raise aphids as livestock, launch armies into war, use chemical sprays to alarm and confuse enemies, and exchange information ceaselessly. They do everything but watch television." I am going to focus this report on the part of the quote, "..launch armies into war..," which sets a metaphor of ants and our armies in today's society. Ants have many tactics, so to speak, that are similar to the way our armies have when going to war. Ants have many different roles in their society. One of the main roles that army ants or soldier ants have is that they …show more content…

They do this because footing for the large ants is better along the margins than in the midst of dense mass of scurrying ants. When the army wants to invade or occupy a county, they usually will set up aircraft carriers in the surrounding oceans and set up air forces in neighboring countries. They do this to protect the inside forces of troops and clears out a root for them to attack. They did this type of tactic during the
Persian Gulf War when we sent aircraft carriers into the Persian Gulf and the
Mediterranean and set up air forces and troops in the neighboring countries to set up an attack. We later launched sea and air attacks to weaken the forces in
Iraq. We need these forces surrounding the area to launch missions to kill or damage the powerful sources and then we send in the troops to tack care of the rest, like taking hostages or capturing any of our hostages. When the ants are sent from the bivouac, the leading ants have no odor for others to follow. They often hesitate and hold back an advance but the pressure built up from behind forces on side of the front line to bulge forward.
As this movement slows down because of the relief of pressure behind it, a new bulge develops and extends forward in another part of the front. The result is a series of advances of different parts of the front which suggests flanking movements. A presence of prey will accelerate the

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