are ants social beings?
good luck
I found myself in Soho Square gardens on sunday, a nice little shelter spot from Storm Bert. I was waiting to go to my umpteenth house viewing, to try and simply get a roof over my head and live in a place close enough to my friends. [decode: i’m on the move, again, this will be place number 17].
Must say, it’s a bloody nightmare trying to decipher the intentions of estate agents, landlords, potential flatmates. Then there’s weighing up if the extortionate rent is worth the sacrifice for an extra foot of space. Not to mention the presence of natural light, in the form of at least one window in the room. Let’s not think about the damp/mould/grime. Storage for a bike is simply a luxury.
Anywhoo, I was in Soho Square gardens, and I was watching an ant. There were no other ants about. It darted this way and that, sometimes aiming for the cracks sometimes skirting it along the pavement. I wonder where that ant lives? Does it feed itself? Does it collect rare foreign food from this garden and take it back to its home crew over on Oxford street? Is it on an adventure? Do ants have adventures? Why wouldn’t ants have adventures?
In the midst of my Big Intense Pondering, two people had come up to me. Friendly, with smiles. They asked me if I believed in reincarnation. A gentle icebreaker between strangers. In an already somewhat existentialist state, I responded, yes. Of course. For example now. You are reincarnated. and again! now. reincarnated again. another breath and boom. you are a different person to who you were 30 seconds ago before you asked me that question. you now know a bit more about me. you have learned something. you are new, reborn. we live in a state of constant reincarnation.
I’m still not sure if I shocked/scared/satisfied them, but they continued chatting nonetheless. Next up on the question list was the one about What is the Meaning of Us Being Here. I fumbled n stumbled and mentioned something about love. This led us onto God. For context, they’re from the Catholic Church. They weren’t preaching. They were engaging in conversations with people.
Wanting to shun the attention away from Me and My Thoughts, I reflected their questions back to them. They told me about their beliefs, including their God. To abbreviate a lot of chatter, it was suggested that God came down in human form. At this point, I asked without a lot of thought, how did we know God hasn’t also come down as a dog? As an ant? My question was, and remains to be, genuine and with curiosity. One of the ladies firmly said God came down in human form, and that’s it. The other was open to my suggestion. I asked about hierarchy. The two had different views on this, with one believing humans are superior and the other believing that god is superior, yet all creation might be equal.
Our meeting has kinda lingered with me, and this morning I was on a walk looking at sheep. Well, actually I think I may have been talking to them and giving them names, including Nigel, Bean and Floss. Nigel was trying to eat the grass on my side of the fence, and I laughed and reminded him of the old saying about grass being greener on the other side. A couple of fields down, just as the sun was creeping up over the horizon, the sheep scarpered off together in a flock. There wasn't a leader, but one of them must have got the fear or something, and that was it, the rest of them went.
Turns out it was two magnificent horses galloping through the field, with two every more magnificent lurchers gliding behind. The two riders had pony tails streaming back in the crisp blue air. It was all a bit of a scene, like a painting from the 1800s. I realised these people were from the Big House on the estate. They literally live there in that huge honk of a house. This is their life. The hierarchy of people is strange. We can’t help but be born, and if we’re going to fit in to society, we must abide by its rules. We must pay taxes and rents and not giggle too much in public. There are unspoken rules written by unknown people about unknown things like How to Behave, What to Say, When to Say It, and Money. Isn’t money such a peculiar thing? Would ants use money? Would they earn bits of paper to exchange for £Roofs, £Food, maybe a £Cinema £Ticket1? And would the amount of Money Earned be reflective of effort, time, skill etc? Or would it be stockpiled among bits of twigs and things that Grandpa Joe brought back on his Adventure to Soho Square?
Turns out, in simple terms, Biologists reckon Ants are incredibly Social beings. They are born into a structure - and ‘behave according to the needs of the colony in roles, dictated by the caste into which they are born’. They have social behaviours, a notable one being their feeding habits - ants have two stomachs, one is the ‘true’ stomach, the other is a sac referred to (by humans) as the ‘social’ stomach. Here, bits of food and whatnot are stored. When an ant is hungry, it strokes a worker with its antennae, and the worker brings up a drop of liquid from its crop and passes it to the other’s mouth. [reckon we should mention this to some hip place in east london, woudln’t take long]
The specific type of sociability we’re talking about with ants is called Eusociality - a term that splits as “EU” meaning “good” and then “social”. [a brief lol at EU = good, in context of sociability]. The term was introduced by Suzanne Batra in 1966, in reference to bees, and later extended to other beings. It considers cooperative behaviours of a species, looking at how individuals take responsibility for various duties that contribute to the functioning and survival of the whole colony. Such eusocial beings are incapable of survival outside of the colony.
I’m not sure which part confirms most that humans are definitely not eusocial. I know that I feel I might be capable of surviving outside of a colony at times. But it’s likely the innate drive for collective survival that humans lack. More kindly put, we are capable of coming together, but to varying degrees. It is this varying nature, not to mention egos etc, that make it all so unstable.
My word is that the time this has been a rANT and a half, a true monologue, maybe I should go and make coffee
PS. If any Londoners happen to know of a roof under which I can live, I’m covered until the new year, but seeking for somewhere please n thanks x
£this references a great book POOR ARTISTS by the White Pube. Read it.
I really enjoyed this musing, or "rAnt" -- lovely moment to spend pondering what's going on. Good luck finding a place!