I remember in 4th grade reading about army ants swarming through the jungle killing everything in their way. I think I also remember and old MacGyver episode that involved ant swarms killing people.
A quick Google shows elderly people dying from fire ant bites in Florida nursing homes but do ant swarms ever kill grown otherwise healthy humans? Is this really a danger to worry about while hiking through the jungle? If I’m in the jungle, and I’m in the oncoming path of a swarm(division?) of army ants, what do I do?
That great font of wisdom, “Wiki,” says this about the species Dorylus;
Seasonally, when food supplies become short, they leave the hill and form marching columns of up to 50,000,000 ants which are considered a menace to people, though they can be easily avoided; a column can only travel about 20 metres in an hour. It is for those unable to move, or when the columns pass through homes, that there is the greatest risk. There have been reported cases of people—usually the young, infirm, or otherwise debilitated who could not escape—being killed and eventually consumed by them, often dying of asphyxiation.
I beleive there have been documented killings, but only when the victim couldn’t get out of the way for some reason. The most recent report I can find is from 2009, saying a drunken bolivian went to sleep under an ant infested tree. I don’t know if an autopsy was performed, I wouldn’t necessarily trust the report.
You don’t need to worry about army ants, you can easily step out of their way. IIRC, the most common species don’t have eyes, I’m not sure if that is true of all 200 odd species. Some insects defend against them by simply standing still, preventing the ants from detecting them. Farmers love them, as they kill pests.
Fire ant bites aren’t really much of a problem. It’s their sting that causes the nasty, itchy pustules. For clarification, stings come from the tail end, as with bees, wasps, and scorpions. Bites come from the head end, as with horseflies, spiders, fleas, and mosquitoes.
True, but the bite is to hold on while the filthy little bastards sting you w/ their butt ends, along w/ a few dozen of their angry kin. I got stung in May and still have the scars bright as day on my ankle.
The Palo Santo tree (Triplaris sp.)has a symbiotic relationship with the Pseudomyrmex ants that live inside it and defend it against enemies. The ants sting viciously, and enough of them could probably cause death.
True. New World army ants (Eciton and others) are no real hazard to anything that can move faster than a small lizard. They both sting and bite, however, and the swarms are numerous enough that they could probably kill someone who was incapacitated. I’ve never actually heard of a case, though.
I can’t remember the source, but I’ve read somewhere (with a “probably reliable” memory tag on it) that in Africa there is an ant swarm that can be dangerous if you CAN’T get out of it’s way, and that, very rarely, people are seriously injured or even killed.
The example given, by a Westerner living in Africa, was that her baby was in a tent one night and suddenly started screaming. Those sitting around the fire nearby rushed to the tent and found the baby covered with “swarming” ants that had just arrived. They rescued the baby and took measures to avoid the ants. Apparently the infirm, babies, and young children MIGHT be in some danger in such circumstances. I seem to recall some bad result to a passed-out local drunk associated with this assessment of ant swarm dangers. The author said locals regarded ant “swarms” as a minor irritant (given other things to worry about–someone should start a thread about the Black Mamba).
Of course, fiction provides some wonderfully horrendous stories. I recall something about a stubborn planter in South America running through a mile or two of ants to get to an irrigation gate wheel to flush out his land, with non-fatal but appalling fictional results.
As an aside, I was watching one of those David Attenborough nature documentaries once where he said that ants are thought to have descended from their communal flying cousins, bees & wasps. Which isn’t the direction I’d have guessed (kind of like cetacean ancestors once being landbound) but it would explain the stingers.
Quirks and Quarks, the Canadian podcast, had a piece on ants a few weeks ago and the expert mentioned that occassionally livestock that has been tied up will be killed by ant swarms. Again, these are animals that can’t easily escape the ants (i.e. walk away).
Poor Yoric: Yes, “Leningen vs. the Ants” is exactly right. One of those great old early 20th Century stories that makes a lifelong impression when read in grade school; see also Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” (1908).
I’m doing well enough on memory today to risk it again. Here is another nonfictional “ant swarm” story that someone might recognize.
This one comes from a woman writing a memoir of what I remember as a South American army ant swarm. It it, she gives an account of her family (North American or European, mother and father, young brother, and a modest serving staff) preparing for a “moving carpet” onslaught through the family’s rural compound. She begins by telling the etymological facts of such a swarm, and then the story of her youthful experience (@ age 12, I’d guess). Her parents and a few staff stayed on as the ants advanced, for reasons I can’t recall.
They put the legs of a large table into cans half-filled with kerosine in a large room, climbed onto the table, and held several large umbrellas overhead to catch ants falling from the ceiling, shaking these off from time to time. They knew very clearly how long they would have to hold out, and overnight was the duration of the swarm taking over the house. The story teller watched as ants swarmed into the room and up the walls, methodically pursuing and trapping a large insect (perhaps a Scorpion) in a corner. She claims to have fallen asleep just as the final gotterdammerung battle got under way. In the morning, the last remnants of this creature were being carried in triumph (somewhat anthropomorphically) down a crack. Later in the day, the swarm had passed.
If I remember this story accurately, and if it was nonfiction, clearly the danger from ant swarms is serious but not deadly: The parents elected to sit it out with their kids.
Her final comment was that a temporary desert was left behind by the ants passing, and the kids had a grace period in which they no longer had to shake out their shoes in the morning to avoid Scorpion stings. (If Colibri is in Panama he might well be familiar with this practice).
Leiningen Versus the Ants is the story The Naked Jungle was based on.
The “marabunta” ants in The Naked Jungle are entirely fictional. They apparently both eat flesh (like army ants) and strip vegetation (like leaf cutters). Their swarms are larger by orders of magnitude than those of any actual army ant. I thought one of the most hilarious scenes in the movie was where the swarm appears on a distant hillside, and immediately munches an entire tropical rainforest down to the ground. So they seem to be related to termites too, since they consume tree trunks.
If it was intended as non-fiction, it would be vastly exaggerated. I think most people would vacate their house and go next door rather than try to stay. But as has been said, army ants are no real menace to anyone who is mobile. And ants usually pass through a single area in a matter of hours. To the best of my knowledge, army ants also only swarm during the day; during the night they move their temporary “bivouac” containing the queen and larvae to the next location.
People who live in thatched huts are often glad to have a visitation by army ants to get rid of cockroaches, scorpions, and other vermin. (However, I’ve never actually found a scorpion in my shoe; I keep them inside the tent.)