Army Ants

Text and photographs by Mark W. Moffett At the pinnacle of social cooperation, army ants overwhelm their prey through their sheer force of numbers. Get a taste of what awaits you in print from this compelling excerpt. Forget lions, tigers, and bears. Forget even our own famously aggressive species. When it comes to the art of war, it's army ants that will make you break into a cold sweat. Armored tough, with machete jaws, these masterful fighters hack and dice prey vastly larger than themselves by acting in numbers beyond easy comprehension. Imagine hordes of spear-wielding humans at a wooly mammoth's feet. That's the scale of army ant operations when they're attacking a tarantula or scorpion. Army ant colonies succeed at making tens of thousands such kills each day. Folklore to the contrary, their prowess does have limits. Their dragnets don't take down livestock or people (though some African species occasionally live up to that image). (Army Ants Vedio)