Last night I watched The Ant Bully, which I highly recommend, and it made me realize that there is more to ants than their pesky habit of getting into our sugar jars and sweet foods. So what is so fascinating about ants that makes them the perfect main characters for a children's movie?
For an exciting look into the fascinating ant kingdom, let your mouse do some clicking on this site: http://ant.edb.miyakyo-u.ac.jp/BE/Kingdom/0203/0203e.html
Most of us have heard the fact that ants can carry 25+ times their own body mass:
Ants are more than just bugs that get into our kitchens and infest our cookie jars. They are highly social insects that each have their own job in the colony. Did you know that ants constitute up to 15-25% of the total animal biomass?!?! Amazing! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant
LEARNING AND EDUCATION
One good reason for using ants in a children's movie, is that they can actually learn behaviors through interactive teaching. This is shown in the movie The Ant Bully as the child ants realize that the human's idea is better and decide to try it to win a competition. Ants don't just imitate, they are taught new skills by other ants.
"Knowledgeable forager ants of the species Temnothorax albipennis directly lead naïve nest-mates to newly discovered food sources by the excruciatingly slow (and time-costly) process of tandem running. The follower thereby obtains knowledge that it would not have, had it not been tutored, and this is at the expense of its nest-mate teacher. Both leader and follower are acutely sensitive to the progress of their partner. For example, the leader slows down when the follower lags too far behind, and speeds up when the follower gets too close, while the follower does the opposite." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant#Learning)
This interactive teaching is usually only observed in primates and a few mammals, but ants, those tiny little insects, can also learn from teaching each other new things! In other words, ants can tutor other ants in learning new skills!
ANTS ARE FARMERS!!!
In The Ant Bully, the ants had trained and herded these big huge caterpillar-looking things like
cattle, and would drink sweet nectar from their rear ends...which is actually what ants do! These herded insects are aphids, which secrete sweet "honeydew" from their anuses that is remnants of plant sugars that they cannot digest. Ants love the taste of it so much that they actually "herd" aphids and protect them from predators! http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek010422.html
In The Ant Bully, the ants had trained and herded these big huge caterpillar-looking things like
cattle, and would drink sweet nectar from their rear ends...which is actually what ants do! These herded insects are aphids, which secrete sweet "honeydew" from their anuses that is remnants of plant sugars that they cannot digest. Ants love the taste of it so much that they actually "herd" aphids and protect them from predators! http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek010422.html
ANTS GROW GARDENS!!!Some ants actually grow their own underground gardens! In tropical areas, Gardener ants (aka leaf-cutting ants) cut up large numbers of plant leaves, chew them into a mush, and put the mush in chambers in the nest. This warm, moist mush soon grows a white fungus that the ants harvest and eat! Not only do they grow it, but they constantly tend to it so that other fungi cannot grow like weeds! Wow. http://www.highlightskids.com/Science/Stories/SS1001_antsGarden.asp
These are just a few of the amazing reasons why ants make such good movie characters...and because the movie was so scientifically correct in so many ways, it made me realize that a section of this movie could be played before learning about ants as insects in a classroom. What a great way to expand knowledge and create interest in the field of science!!!
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