The Tiny Teacher ( part 1 )

NAME the smallest insect you have seen, and the wisest. Is

it the fly? No, it isn’t. Is it the mosquito? No, not the

mosquito. Then it must be the worm. No, none of these. It

is the ant—the commonest, the smallest but the wisest

insect. The story of an ant’s life sounds almost untrue. But

people have kept ants as pets, and have watched their daily

behaviour closely. So we know a number of facts about

this tiny, hard-working and intelligent creature.

An ant uses its feelers or antennae to ‘talk’ to other

ants by passing messages through them. Watch a row of

ants moving up or down the wall. Each ant greets all the

others coming from the opposite direction by touching thier feelers .

There are many kinds of ants. The commonest among

them are the black or red ones. We have seen them since

we were children, but haven’t paid enough attention to

them. Where do they live? In their

comfortable homes called ‘nests’ or

‘anthills’. Each has hundreds of little

rooms and passages. In some of these

rooms the queen ant lays eggs. Others

are nurseries for the young ones

(called ‘grubs’). Workers have their

reserved quarters. They spend most of their time searching

for food. Some rooms serve as storehouses for this food.

Soldiers have separate barracks. No worker has ever tried

to live in a soldier’s house; no soldier has ever gone out

searching for food. No worker or soldier or cleaner has ever

harmed a grub. So you see, an ant’s life is very peaceful.

Each does its share of work intelligently and bravely, and

never fights with other members of the group.

The queen is the mother of the entire population of the

colony. It lives for about fifteen years. It has a pair of wings,

but bites them off after its ‘wedding’ flight. This flight takes

place on a hot summer day. The queen leaves the nest and

goes out to meet a male ant, or drone, high up in the air.

On its return to earth, it gets rid of its wings and then does

nothing but lay eggs.

Eggs hatch and grubs come out. Soldiers guard them.

Workers feed and clean them, and also carry them about

daily for airing, exercise and sunshine. Two or three weeks

later, grubs become cocoons and lie without food or activity

for three weeks more. Then the cocoons break and perfect

ants appear. Now it’s time for teaching and training. New

ants learn their duties from old ants as workers, soldiers,

builders, cleaners, etc. After a few weeks’ training, the small

ants are ready to go out into the

big world of work.

An anthill is a home not only

for ants but also for some other

creatures—beetles, lesser breeds

of ants and the greenfly. Why do

ants want these alien creatures

to live in their nests? For several

reasons: some give off smell

pleasant to the ants’ senses;

others give sweet juices; and some are just pets or

playthings like cats and dogs to human beings. The greenfly

is the ants’ cow. The ants train it to give honeydew (like

milk) with a touch of their antennae. They milk it just as

we milk the cow.

Have humans learned as much as ants have? Perhaps

they have, but they haven’t put their learning to good use.

They may still learn a few things from this tiny teacher—

hard work, sense of duty and discipline, cleanliness, care

for the young ones, and, above all, a firm loyalty to the land

where they live.

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