This thread went well. It was an interesting question, though.
[QUOTE=KlondikeGeoff]
Probably because it is next to impossible to answer such a thing. Even the ant estimate can’t be more than a wild-ass guess, can it? Do you have a cite for the ant study and what the methodology was?
[/QUOTE]
Hölldobler, Bert, and E. O. Wilson. 1990. The Ants. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts., according to Re: Percentage of biomass made up by ants. This seems to be pretty much the standard literature on the topic, and probably is the work that originated this ant-mass factoid. More specific references should be found in there.