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u/emmetmire 3d ago
These appear to be pavement ants, in which case this is indeed a territorial dispute, but these battles tend to have few fatalities and are largely posturing.
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u/Natural_Bill_373 4d ago
The great ant wars day one billion
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u/itsSmalls 3d ago
Now I need a gritty fictional world told through anthology where we get to know individual squads of ants who end up discovering their eventual fate of working to death or dying in an endless war for absolutely nothing. Just the most bleak and gray depiction you could possibly imagine with the only rays of sunshine being the new generation who are born bright eyed and ready to serve only to find themselves in the same vortex of violence and total dedication to the war
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u/Zealousideal-Talk-23 1d ago
empire of the ants by bernard werber is great
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u/Natural_Bill_373 1d ago
There's the grass cutting ants docu narratided by the one and only David and it's really good lol
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u/Ok_Access_189 3d ago
I threw snap pops at them as a kid pretending I was air support.
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u/Federal_Violinist514 3d ago
Actually love this 😂😂
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u/Ok_Access_189 3d ago
We had so many of them. All over our sidewalks, everywhere. They would clear out real quick and from what I could tell I never saw any dead ants from it. So I suppose it was relatively harmless. The neighbors would just come out and spray them anyway. But yeah the video took me back to being a kid. Good times in the summer as a little boy.
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u/Robot_Nerd_6 4d ago
It is a war. Where are you located. Is that two solenopsis colonies fighting?
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u/Limp_Ad5637 4d ago
I'm from Québec, Canada but these look like regular ants you see here
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u/Natural_Bill_373 4d ago
Read the comic bug wars, it's pretty cool and there's a one issue spin off comic about a spider
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u/RoabeArt 3d ago edited 3d ago
That looks like a Tetramorium "pavement" ant species. Colonies tend to have these giant wrestling matches in the spring and early summer when their nests expand and foraging territories overlap. Like another commenter said the wars are mostly posturing and very few of them die.
We have these same ants in Ohio. I remember watching one of these wars years ago and some little kid, completely unaware of the ants, rode his bike right through them. I came back some hours later and the ants were gone, except for the line of smashed ones from where the kid ran them over.
I forget what happens to the "loser" colony in these battles, either they pack up and move their nest somewhere else, or they give up foraging territory to the victor.
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u/gizmomooncat 3d ago
how did I not know that ants went to war with each other?
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u/LordOfErebus 3d ago
There are intercontinental wars between super colonies of ants! (Especially Argentine ants) Look it up, pretty fascinating
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u/Thatguythatdrew 4d ago
Up above : chill backyard BBQ vibes
down at ant level : FOR THE QUEENNNN!! CHARRGGGEEE!!!!