Obviously, non-human organisms and humans are essentially alike, both seek to stay alive, comfortable, and do all the things they do naturally from their physiology.
Now, I would like to hear from our informed and insightful people here, whether there is the phenomenon of war among non-human species, within a species or among species.
How do we understand war? The war of Bush and company against Iraq, I believe can serve as a very fair concept of war for our purpose.
If animals don’t do wars the way we do war like the one against Iraq by Bush and company, then we have got a lot to learn from non-human organisms, at least for people who are against war and violence, on how to stop and even prevent wars.
And if they do wars, then people who do advocate war for any reasons might be able to learn how to do ‘better’ wars from non-human organisms – if they do engage in wars.
Susma Rio Sep
Plenty of examples, epending upon how loose your definition of “war” is. For instance, ants will wage war against neighboring colonies (even of the same species) in order to gain control of resources, including young. Troops of several different monkey species will wage war in order to obtain preferred territories. there are many other examples to be found here. Humans are not unique among animals in this regard.
Large-scale territorial squabbles (read: war) will occur almost invariably when organisms are severely overcrowded. Humans have been unthinkably overcrowded for a very long time now. Go figure.
Ants don’t fight termites, they eat them. If we are going to consider that war then we have to admit that lions are perpetually at war with wildebeest.
Actually, when an army of ants attacks a termite mound, they’re not only after the termites, they’re after the stuff that the termites have collected. Ants actually won’t eat termites, but they will use dead termite bodies (and all the other stuff gathered in the wake of the battle) as compost, the same way they use everything they scavenge. The compost is used to grow fungus, and it’s the fungus that the ants eat. Hence, it’s about taking resources from rivals, which some may describe as war.
When you talk about lions, you’re right that they’re not “at war” with wildebeest. However, you can say that lions are “at war” with other creatures that hunt wildebeest, like hyenas. I once saw a documentary (I think it was an episode of Nature on PBS) which showed a pack of hyenas being attacked by a lion. Several hyenas were mauled and one was killed, but after his rampage the lion ate nothing and left.
Of course, when humans wage wars with other species, we tend to treat the word “war” as a metaphor. Home owners wage “war” with pests that invade their homes, cattle ranchers wage “war” with predators that kill their cattle. Heck, “war” is only really used as a metaphor in the inter-species examples above as well. We only really mean war when humans wage war on other humans.
“Ants are termites’ worst enemies. However from the ants’ point of view, termites represent a major source of food, allowing the Top End savannas to support one of the richest and most abundant ant faunas in the world. They even move into termite mounds, using them as a home. The termite soldiers fight bravely against this invasion, but often lose the battle.” http://savanna.ntu.edu.au/information/ar/predators_of_termit1.html
Far from ants never eating termites:
“Ants appear to be the only predators that will occasionally invade the diffuse gallery systems of termites species like the subterranean and drywood species found in the U.S. and other temperate and subtropical regions.” http://flrec.ifas.ufl.edu/entomo/BugBites/bbv2n2.htm
Far from ants never eating termites:
:The major predators of termites are ants and aardwolves. Ants such as Whispering-Ants have specialized on attacking and eating termites. http://www.serengeti.org/flying_termite.html
Cite!
This could only possibly true of the tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of farming ants. Hardly representative. Even in these instances if the ant species is omnivorous they eat the termites as well.
I do not believe that ants ever attack termite colonies primarily to steal compost materials.
To me war implies some large scale organisation on at least one side. This would allow a pack or troop or colony to be at war, but a few lions working together would seem to stretch this a bit far.
I think there are some species of ant that raid other colonies and steal their eggs. Then wait for the eggs to hatch and raise them as slave ants.
But, yes, I would say that ants are the ultimate warrior species and it would be hard to see any way that ant wars differ from human wars.
If anything, ants are better at war than humans in that they all instinctively know where they need to be and what they need to do - they don’t need generals and stuff.
What kind of ants could you get to patrol the foundations of your house for termites? How would you encourage them? (House is in the Bay Area, California.)
I saw a documentary about a cheetah, she had two cubs, and apparently lions don’t like cheetahs, as one night they found her cheetah den, killed, but did not eat her cubs, and carried on. I guess the theory is that they are killing the competition, and they have a hard time catching and killing adult cheetahs, so they search for them when they are young.
(It was a sad show, I have to stop watching the Nature channel)