While being somewhere in Suriname outside of the city I noticed this little guy working hard trying to haul his green leave to wherever he was going. He seemed kind of lost as there where no other ants around him, but then again, maybe this was the one guy that didn't like to conform to society and decided to take a detour that he deemed more efficient. My kind of dude.
He posed for a few more pictures on my instructions. Not the easiest model I've worked with, but not the most difficult one either. After taking a last picture beside a piece of wood, one of nature's props, he decided he had gained enough Instagram clout and went on his way. Before I could tell him that Hive is the better alternative to post his pictures, he was gone. If any of you know his username here, feel free to tag him.
After contemplating whether I should leave the comfort of the hammock I was lying in, I reached the conclusion that finding out what this ant, and probably others where doing with these leaves. So in the name of exploration, science and simple curiosity I started my investigation.
It didn't take long to find the main route, where all the sheeple ants conformed to the status quo, unlike my earlier friend that sticks it to the man. They were neatly organized in a line of about 10 centimeters, not moving out at all. So even though these guy pack a hard punch, or rather bite, I was safe as long as I didn't cross their path.
Eventually I found their secret hideout. The leaves are all disappearing into the abyss at hand. All of them going in, none of them going out. They probably have another entrance somewhere where they leave to find more treasures. Sadly I couldn't follow them into the nest, so we will just have to speculate from this point on.
There where other entrances spread along the sands, but no working line attached to those. They may possibly be other less progressive ant societies, or maybe those are closed for maintenance.
The leaves kept coming, in all shapes and sizes. Not sure what they are using it for. Is it food? Construction material? Do they have the technology to create plantlife underground from remnants of trees? Or is it possibly something even more sinister and have I stumbled upon the possible end of the world, with these red buggers at the forefront.
Who knows, maybe their lair goes all the way to the earths core. Whatever they may be doing, one thing is for sure, they are organized, structured and disciplined in their process and we can learn a lot from this.
