Today we are all going to learn a lesson in loyalty and teamwork. I know, who would have thought that a blog about animals could teach us life lessons? So how is an animal blog going to teach us these important life lessons? By looking at the model student for loyalty and teamwork, the Army Ant. Seriously, if you look up either of these terms in the dictionary, the Army Ant’s picture will be beside the term. Don’t believe me? I will wait, while you go and look.

(slowly looks at his watch)

About time!  Did you have a tough time finding an actual hardcopy dictionary? So did you find it? Of course you didn’t, I just made all that stuff up but we can definitely learn a thing or two from the Army Ant and I will explain how right now.

Okay, so I lied since I want to describe the Army Ant before getting into their loyalty and teamwork traits. Army Ants are basically designed for war.  First of all, the soldiers can get up to 1.27 cm (0.5 inches), which is fairly large when you think about the typical size of an ant. Not only are they bigger than most ants but they are covered in protective armour and just happen to have mandibles that are equivalent to a set of Ginsu knives. To make matters worse, they aren’t afraid to use these knives to slice and dice anything that gets in their way. I know this is starting to sound like a late night infomercial but I am just trying to paint a picture of the Army Ant….oh and if you read this in the next 30 minutes, because you know we can’t do this all day, I will throw in a second set of razor sharp mandibles at no extra charge, just pay for shipping and handling.

Now we know how these ants are designed for war but how do they define loyalty and teamwork? Well, for starters, their nest is actually made of living ants. Okay, maybe I should expand on this a little. Army Ants live in temporary nests that they form by linking their bodies (by their feet and mandibles) to each other. These nests made of living ants are intricate and protect the queen ant living inside. Now if that is not loyalty then I don’t know what is?

As far as the teamwork life lesson. Well, Army Ants are very aggressive hunters and will typically leave the nest in large masses of 200 000 or more ants. Basically, anything in the way of this swarm of large soldier ants will be destroyed. There have been reports of reptiles and small mammals being trapped and perishing at the hands….errr…. mandibles of these incredible ants. Even more impressive is the fact that these soldier ants don’t have eyes so they rely on following chemical scents to find their prey and their way home. All I know is I wouldn’t want 200 000 blind ants wielding sharp knives coming towards me!

Okay, so today’s fact is a little longer than usual and it is taking all of my will power to cut it off here. As you can tell, the Army Ant is one incredible species and I suggest you do a bit of extra research on your own to learn more about these fascinating creatures. I will let you go now. Enjoy the rest of your day!