Only if the ants board a plane, and I hear airport security is pretty tight these days. Ants are much less geographically concentrated than humans, and lack the ability to travel long distances. In any urban or semi-urban area we certainly outmass them. Many species of ant lack the ability to pierce human skin. Army ants could kill humans by mass stinging, but there are no documented reports of them killing anyone who wasn’t already incapacitated, and very few of those. If they were capable of hunting people they would already do so.
It’s obvious to me that the gap between what many people think ants can do and their actual abilities is vast. Ant colonies are amazing things, but have evolved to co-operate in very specific ways. For example, an army ant column can’t change direction quickly, they are following a trail of pheremones. They don’t have the ability to identify a human and chase them. They basically swarm forward and smother and sting anything that moves. Some insects defend themselves by simply standing still. The ants run right over them without perceiving them. Army ants don’t have eyes, but I doubt even the species that do could pick out a human from the other objects in their environment. Wave your hand a couple inches above an ant and you won’t get a reaction.
Having been attacked by ants in my childhood, I can say they’d be tough opponents. they are smart enough to swarm first, bite second. I was completely covered from the waist down before I even knew they were there. Then they all started to bite at once. That said, it was painful, but a bathtub solved the problem.
Rats, on the other hand, could take out a large portion of us in our sleep on the first night. I’d say if the rats alone went after us, we’d be down to a few isolated geographic regions within days.
That’s interesting, were you alseep at the time? IIRC, squishing an ant causes it to release pheremones that provoke an agressive response from the others, which does give them some ability to co-ordinate attacks. Same with bees.
Piffle. Monkeys are still clumsy with simple pointy sticks, give them a gun and they would probably just shoot themselves trying to look down the barrel.
These things are already attacking us as hard as they can. Your gut flora will devour you the first chance they get, they don’t differentiate between your body and the food you (and they) are digesting, your immune system and other natural defenses keep them in check.
If it was just vertebrates dead against us for a month, I reckon the human race would scrape through with heavy losses. If it’s all animal life, we’re screwed. I guess a few people might manage to hole up in some military bunker somewhere, but even that must have its own population of mites, flies, spiders, etc.
What if the playing field was a little more even, let’s say: anything living on or in our bodies naturally, aren’t part of this, but everything else is.
It would be a hellova scrap. There would be a little while before people were completely aware of what was going on, but it wouldn’t take long after that for all of humanity to quickly join together as one and effectively fight back. A bee keeper’s suit would help tremendously against most if not all insects, reducing the problem to larger animals. If some scientists could get to their labs safely, I’d imagine a toxin could be made that wouldn’t harm humans, but wipe out anything else that got within a certain range. We probably wouldn’t want to release something that spread like a virus because after the 31 days are up there would be massive damage done to the animal kingdom and it would still continue to spread like a wildfire. Just something that killed anything that got within a designated area. I think a deadly toxin would be more effective than a tank :), it’s not as cool, but would kill the beasties within seconds of exposure.
If I couldn’t get to said toxin in time to save myself right away, say I’m too far away from the pockets of people that have released it, my weapon of choice to make my way to the designated areas safely would most likely be a can of bug spray and a military grade shotgun. I’d also want to be driving one of the storm chasers tanks (not that I watch that show really, but I love their modified vehicles)
Only if this was a movie. In reality, anything broad-spectrum enough to rapidly wipe out assailants from the whole of the animal kingdom is going to harm humans.
I suppose a bit of clarification is called for from the OP: when the “switch is flipped”, do the animals actively seek out humans to destroy? Or do they only attack on sight/sound/vibration/pheromone level/whatever? If the thought that fills their heads is, “Must seek out human to eat, human is primary food source,” rather than whatever their normal primary food source is, then we’re truly screwed, but if they’re not actively hunting us, we’ll stand a bit more of a chance.
Even the eyelash mites, what can they really do? They eat skin cells, they can only eat so much, they’re tiny creatures. If they try to burrow into your eyes you’ll blink, and they’ll be flushed away like people in a tsunami. Your eyelids are tectonic plates to them. It’s like a man with a shovel trying to crack apart the Earth’s crust.
Maybe there’s some animal or creature on this planet that could truly hurt us and that isn’t already doing all it can to do so, but I don’t think it would be any of the microflora that lives on our bodies, they’re already so completely mindless that if there’s any part of us that they can eat they already are.
I have to confess, I didn’t quite read the question properly. Insects could easily overwhelm the human race even if they did so by crawling into our throats and choking us, but that would indeed be a violation of the OP’s non-direction clause.
Hmmm… I’m going to retract my initial assessment. We’ll take some losses from social insects and some arachnids, if we’re assigned as a threat to them, but enough humans will luck it out that we’ll survive.
Oh, and all the animals attacking wouldn’t be something from a movie :D, c’mon, it’s not real to begin with, but if you must, then fine, protective hazmat suits would solve that issue :).
If every ant, mosquito and spider on my tiny 1/4acre property suddenly decided that I was it’s only available meal, I’m guessing they alone would do me in. then add the squirrels, and other rodents - nto to mentiont he raccoons? I can’t fight them all off at once.
All it takes is one passing deer to crash through the window and open up access. I’m bettign the raccoons could manage this if they got hungry enough.
I don’t even want to think about how the hawk would involve himself. :: shudder ::
Without coordination, they wouldn’t all be able to sense you at any distance or close in on you simultaneously. And what would the mosquitos do to you, more than they already do?
For example, the actual senses of an ant are generally pretty short-range.
The mammals could sense you it is true, but the actual numbers of larger animals capable of doing real damage are somewhat limited, if you live in an urban setting. In Toronto, for example, raccoons are around in numbers almost as great as people - but an adult person could take a raccoon more often than not, in one-on-one combat to the death - even unarmed. A few good kicks would do the trick. Add improvised weapons like baseball bats at the combat is very uneven.
Small mammals would only be deadly with coordination. The notion of an unstoppable tide of rats stripping flesh from bone is terrifying - but illusory. In reality, it is every rat for itself - which is how the 18th-19th century “sport” of rat-baiting worked: toss one dog into a pit with a hundred rats, and even though the rats could in theory overcome the dog, they don’t - because they can’t communicate or co-ordinate, and so it is only one rat at a time …
I suspect the real damage would be inflicted by domestic animals, particularly dogs.
In short, I would predict lots of human casualties (initially), but humans would win.
