My Fear of Ants is not Irrational
As just a small, homeschooled fourth grader I was already obsessed with biology. Mornings in my house were hectic, but I enjoyed watching as each sibling shuffled out and took their chaos with them. It was in this restful silence that I would begin my scientific exploration for the day and crack open my textbook. Unfortunately, on one of these days, I would get my first exposure to a class of insects known as Arthropoda. All insects in this category, including ants, are known for their six, jointed legs and exoskeleton. My eyes scanned the paragraphs and pictures of these terrible creatures and read the sentences:
“African or South American army ants have no permanent homes. During their hunting raids, a temporary shelter is built for the queen from the bodies of the ants themselves. Other types of ants capture smaller ants and make them work as slaves. ”
From this description, I was reasonably shocked. This book described ants as being in a society which meant, they could organize. This was my first realization of the strategies and power that ants possess.
Ant literature went quiet for a while, at least for someone with a fourth-grade reading level. However, the creatures themselves remained ever-present in my life. I grew up in an old house with many cracks, weaknesses for the ants to perpetrate. They were on every surface, and nowhere was safe. I started to learn where they would hide and how to stay away from them. It wasn’t so much their enslaving capabilities that worried me at this point but more the fact that I was a sensitive child with an appreciation for life. Every ant, no matter its size, was delicate. I panicked when they were on me (usually flicked there by my sister), but froze, unable to escape without harming them. I have vivid memories of them drowning in dishwater, scampering up the slick bathtub, or army crawling away with only their front two segments left. Even though I developed a failproof method for brushing ants off my without harming them, my house was still a massacre of ants. I felt their suffering but hated their existence.
By high school, I was watching house extermination videos from ant experts and Discovery Channel’s documentary about jungle ant communities. All these taught me that the ants, I saw in my house were only a fraction of the ants present in my walls. I also learned to distinguish the types of ants and their purpose. According to one of these pest-clearing companies, there are two main types of ants that people see in their houses. These are scouting ants and worker ants. The large, meaty ants are sent in first to hunt down food sources and recruit the smaller ants who will bring home the prize. Because of this, I dreaded seeing the smaller ants. The signal had already been sent, and there were many more to come. It also motivated me to interfere with the scouting ants even if it meant compromising my proclivity against killing creatures. The war with them was long, and I ultimately ran away from my problems.
I’m not sure what it was about my room (maybe the lack of vacuuming and hordes of candy), but the ants loved it there. I would wake up in my lofted bed to find them patrolling the perimeters of my ceiling and would watch as they mounded over my carpet’s shag. I got used to the paranoid feeling of something crawling on me. They were in my sheets, bathroom sink, and kitchen cabinets. I really don’t think my house was that unclean, but once ants enter, they never leave.
I have expanded my knowledge of ants and they only terrify me more. According to LiveScience, they are adapted to almost every biome, farm fungi, communicate over long distances, and set up civilizations that reflect humans.
“Ants already control the planet. They just do it under our feet.”
Once I moved out to go to college, my exposure dropped to nothing. We get ants in the kitchen of our rental where I currently live, and I still long to redo the caulk around the windows. But, at least now, I can sleep without fear and shower peacefully. I would encourage anyone with an ant infestation to take it seriously and check up on any adolescents living with them.
