Ants poised to inherit the Earth

We’re doomed. As much as I’d like to cleave to the notion of the survival of the species, anecdotal evidence suggests we don’t have a prayer.

Go outside and poke around in your yard and tell me what you see. A quick glance will confirm the bad news: there are ants everywhere, industrious as all get-out, bustling from one task to another, aware of us but unconcerned. And if there’s one, there’s a million.

We had some in the basement last week and let’s just say I’m a Type-A personality when it comes to insects in the house. I lose it. If they’re in, they’ve got to go!

So I grabbed the broom and brushed the little critters out the back door. They panicked at the primary stroke, of course, so I had to make several passes to get the lion’s share and there was still one or two scurrying about, looking for a niche or knot in which to hide.

It was as if they knew what was afoot, that some unspoken command has passed through the ranks as I began my work. How chilling to think that each was in communication with the other, that any threat could be related almost instantaneously. So much for any possibility of a sneak attack.

Yeah. Forget the notion that six billion or so humans outnumber the enemy. Each ant colony has millions of teeming creatures, each intent on serving the queen. The females do the work, the males procreate and they’re as prolific as any creature on the face of the Earth.

They’re not confused by thought or muddled by emotion. The only morality in their world is to work together tirelessly on a utilitarian insectile impulse shared by all in the colony.

Sure, ants create inroads in the soil that help irrigate the land, but come on! Machines can do that just as well and with less aggravation, especially when it comes to picnics, foodstuffs and home invasion.

We are the lesser of the species despite our prodigious intellect, and completely beholden to the caprice of the elements. We are sensitive to heat, annoyed by allergens, at winter’s mercy and require umbrellas when it rains.

Ants don’t care if it’s hot or cold. They exist in frozen tundra and are found in the brutal heat of the Sahara Desert. They survive in all climates and don’t whine about the conditions.

People have said this is a bad year locally for ants, that spring thaw arrived about a month sooner than in previous years. It gave ants the headstart they needed and now they’re everywhere.

But what if it’s not about an early thaw at all? What if ants are massing at such a rate that their co-existence with us on the planet is like a bad Western in which one guy says to the other, “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us”?

What then? If the troops start marching, will we have enough to hold them off?

I don’t know about you, but a can of insect repellant only goes so far and if ants are swarming up your arm as you spray, I fear there’s little left to do but run and scream. Yep - if the word goes out, they’ll come with a single-minded purpose and devotion to task that’ll make even the most diligent human seem a slacker by comparison.

So batten the hatches, kids. That’s my advice, ‘cause maybe the doomsayers are right; ants rule the planet and always have. We just don’t know it yet.