Ants.

This is coolbert:

Ants, as been mentioned in a previous blog entry, do wage war and do so in a manner reminiscent of the way with which man wages war at the primitive level.

It is no wonder that ants have played a particularly crucial role in the theories of Edward O. Wilson [the Ant Man].

Recent program on TV showed how various types of animals live and thrive in proximity to man. Ants being one of those animals. Ants do well in the proximity of man, flourishing off the food scraps that man, with his sloppy eating habits, leaves behind.

This recent television show highlighted this ability of the ants.

Ants have an ability to forage for food in the manner of an human army conducting military operations.

Reconnaissance is carried out by scout ants who begin the search for food by fanning out and searching in a random pattern. This random search pattern ensures that the widest area is searched, more or less guaranteeing some sort of results.

Upon finding a source of food, the scouts then begin a more detailed search of the immediate area. To see what types of food are available and which type will be the easiest to carry back to the nest with the reward of the most energy. Efficiency is most important here.

Having found the food source for the the ant colony, the scouts then return to the nest, communicating their discovery as they go. The scouts lay down a chemical trail that allows the main body of the ant colony to follow to the target [the food source].

If at some point, the chemical trail to the target is broken, the scouts from the point of the break will begin again the random search pattern, hoping to rediscover the source of the food.

This foraging of ants, done as it is with seeming military precision, has intrigued many naturalists over the years. What is most intriguing is that this sophisticated behavior exists in animals that DO NOT POSSESS BRAINS. This behavior is done all by chemical reaction hard wired into the body of the ant. [the term hard wired usually refers to some sort of brain network. I am using this term here referring to the ants, even though ants do not possess brains].

Ants waging war is commented about by various authorities when speculating on the very nature of warfare itself:

"Although it is possible to dismiss virtually all forms of hostility among animals as being not truly warlike, there remains one glaring exception... ants. Besides ourselves, they are the most social and well organized of creatures. Virtually all prerequisites for war are present in ant society—government, armies, politics, and lasting societal results—but the practitioners are automatons just a few millimeters long. Nonetheless, a number of creatures within the vast family Formicidae qualify as true war makers. Here, not among ourselves, we can find that true warfare originated as far back as fifty million years ago."

"when Thoreau watches two armies of ants wage war with all the 'ferocity and carnage of a human battle,' Thoreau’s attention is not that of an entomologist describing their behavior objectively, but rather that of a philosopher thinking about the universal urge to destroy."

Behavior [war] which in man is thought of as a well-thought out social activity, is in ants nothing more than chemical reactions.

Does this pose a problem for those persons speculating on the very nature of the causes of warfare?? I am not sure.

coolbert.