ant queen

so cool and awsome

[lovelessfa1ry]

[queen-ant-offical]

Wonderful child

[cpericardium]

[queen-ant-offical]

Go my children

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

There are ants that bite and will keep biting after they die (because Frick whoever got bitten) and people used to use them as stitches by getting them to bite either end of a wound and when they bite they ripped their bodies off so the head would stay holding it closed and biting (good for humans, we made ants slightly useful. Until we invented stitches which are better so now we can go back to killing all ants

[ijustreallylikeants]

The ants only want to help

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

They can do it without biting :(

[ijustreallylikeants]

How

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

Invent glue

[ijustreallylikeants]

Termites did that already(Badly)

Many ants do help in orchards and farms though

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

Many more cultivate aphids that eat plants

[ijustreallylikeants]

Ants were farming before we were

If anything we’re the invaders here

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

Yeah sure they might have been doing it longer but they come onto plants we are currently farming and start attacking them, we dont take their farms and take them over because they are too small

[ijustreallylikeants]

We cut away large swaths of forest and land that they were using as farmland

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

They can farm underground, they didn't have a warrant

[ijustreallylikeants]

Most ants can’t, they don’t have hands to write

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

And whose fault is that?

[ijustreallylikeants]

Nature, who allowed its favorite creation to thrive without the beauty of poetry, nor the ability to inscribe knowledge anywhere but their own brain, nor the ability to send letters to friends.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

Seems like nature doesn't want ants to legally procure farmland and nature is the boss so...

[ijustreallylikeants]

Nature did not give Man fire. Nay, twas’ prometheus who gave Man the deadly gift intended for no mortal! But man took it, and bent it to their will, and so they did prosper! Why must ants be forced to grovel for our own scraps?

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

Because we were chosen by the gods to be made in their image, molded into what is as close to divine perfection as we may reach while ants have been deemed fit to be no more than the dust under our shoes, and any attempt to treat them as more ignores the sinple fact that we are better, we are more important and they deserve less than the scraps they are given

[ijustreallylikeants]

When the gods sing with their creations, will ants not be part of the choir? The gods did not grace us with 20 quadrillion of them for no reason. It was to honor our earth with a blessed lifeform!

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

ants have no free will, if they were to sing in the choir they would be no more than the mere instruments of war they are on earth

[ijustreallylikeants]

Ants have free will they just have a lot of instinctual knowledge, they act like any other animal: doing what they know will allow them to survive.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

ants will walk directly to their deaths for the queen, they will be convinced they are dead if they are treated as such by others. they have no more free will than robots with the exception of the queens

[ijustreallylikeants]

Okay hang on now, humans will fight in wars for leaders, do we not have free will?

And second, that’s not accurate. They think they’re dead because they’re covered in the pheromone that says ‘I’m dead’, and ants see by pheromones. Thats like a human walking around, smelling like a corpse, looking like a corpse, and being treated like a corpse. If that happened to someone, they would be like

1: “Am I dead?”

2: “There’s something SERIOUSLY wrong with me.”

And ants quarantine themselves when sick! In the graveyards! That’s not a fair argument in the slightest!

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

ants have never rebelled though have they, never deserted or protested?

I'm not talking about when they are sick, I'm talking about when they smell like they are already dead and get treated not as a sick ant but as a corpse by all including themselves

[ijustreallylikeants]

1: That’s literally their mom

2: it’s in their instincts(WHICH IS NOT THE SAME AS NO FREE WILL. We have instincts to share stuff, but we can choose not to. An ant is perfectly capable of choosing whether to turn right or left without any guidance. Same applies to more complex scenarios.

Let’s say you are mostly blind. Occasionally, flashes and trails of color enter your vision. Orange means food, red means danger, green means ‘come here’, blue means ‘follow me’, purple means corpse. Every time you see purple, there’s a corpse. One day, you see purple. So there’s a corpse. One day, you’re purple. So you’re a corpse.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

1: if my mom told me to go walk to my death i would not do that probably

2: we can choose not to share stuff but can ants? they never do anything that isn't in the best interests of the colony. that's good for the colony but when it never happens it is kind of bringing free will into question. and if i was told over and over that a piece of food is a piece of food and then one day someone told me a chair was a piece of food i would still know that's a chair. i just don't think ants are intelligent or aware enough to have free will.

[ijustreallylikeants]

1: think of it like a medieval kingdom. If you are a prince, and your mom, the queen, declares war on a nation, you’d be expected to lead some sort of army.

1: There’s a thing called reciprocal altruism. It essentially operates like this:

If I [have food] and I give some to someone who has [no food], when I have [no food] and they [have food], they will give some to me. They operate with the colony because it assures their own survival.

2: Remember, they’re basically blind. If it smells like something, it looks like something. So if the chair gives off chair scent but then starts giving off food scent, they will think it’s food. If the chair looks like a chair but then looks like food then you’ll think it’s food.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

1; princes are assured some level of safety, their death is not almost certain like an ant on the front lines is

1; yes that is true but humans also practice it and there are humans who choose to do otherwise because they unlike ants make choices that are not always beneficial to the greater whole

2: not all ant species are basically blind but tbh on this point you have convinced me even if i still believe in my other points

[ijustreallylikeants]

1: it winds back around to reciprocal altruism. If I [fight] for this person when they are in [danger], then they will [fight] for me when I am in [danger].

2: In this video, right at the start of the eusociality part, it explains inclusive fitness. Basically, the ants disperse more genetic material by helping their mom instead of laying eggs themselves, which is why this method of breeding hasn’t died out yet.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

if there is never a single selfish member in your species and they all act in the benefit of all because its always the most logical thing then i don't think that free will, they all act the same for the same goal and reason without fail. i understand how they could have evolved like that but that doesn't change the fact that they simply follow orders

[ijustreallylikeants]

1: They are still animals. I may give them a lot of credit, but most of what they do is based off instinct. To be selfish, you have to either be 1) smart enough to realize that an alternative action will increase your fitness over another’s or 2) dumb enough to not plan ahead and think only of yourself. Most of the time the actions would not outweigh the benefits of the aforementioned reciprocal altruism, but even if it wasn’t, I don’t think they would be smart enough to realize this. If they had higher intelligence or larger brains, I think they could absolutely be selfish(on a larger scale).

2: There actually are instances of ants being selfish, though only in select colonies in select circumstances. In certain species, workers maintain working reproductive organs and sometimes choose to lay their own eggs at the expense of the colony(though they are usually killed/destroyed by other workers to maintain colony order), and in some fire ant colonies where there are multiple queens, one queen will try to kill another, in an attempt for her genes to get a better chance, even though more queens means more workers means more food for all queens.

3: Ants don’t receive “orders” from anyone. They choose what to do. They can forage, dig, care for the eggs, care for the queen, or protect the colony. Some ants scout, and the others ants know that the scout will lead them to food, so they follow them.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

well yeah i agree, i dont think they are smart or advanced enough to have free will. i dont think they are smart enough to do whatever they want in the same way a dog or turtle can. i dont think they are advanced enough to be considered something with free will with the exception of the queens

i am speaking specifically of ants whose queen is the only one that breeds because when they act it would be them being selfish as opposed to a new mutation that could be passed down making them act differently. i have said a few times i believe the queens are the only members with free will but i probably should have made that clearer. i speak specifically of non breeding worker ants.

3. The shift in a worker ant’s job over its lifetime is known as age polyethism. Newly emerged workers, often pale, begin their lives performing the safest tasks deep within the nest, such as nursing the brood and cleaning. This initial phase allows them to gain experience and for their exoskeletons to fully harden. As the ant matures, it gradually moves outward, transitioning to tasks like nest construction. The final, and riskiest, stage involves foraging and colony defense outside the nest.

This age-based specialization maximizes the worker’s lifetime contribution; if an older ant dies while foraging, the colony loses a less valuable individual than a younger worker. For some tasks, physical capability also drives this progression, as seen in leaf-cutter ants. Younger workers, called callows, may lack the muscle force and rigidity required for the demanding task of cutting leaves.

workers have jobs based on age, physical capability and the needs of the colony not choice.

[ijustreallylikeants]

1: To effectively continue this, I need some more info. Where do you draw the line here? I assume an elephant has free will, but does a wolf? What about a prairie dog? A mole rat? (I’m being genuine here, I actually want to know)

2: Thank you for clarifying

3: I agree with you here, but that does not necessarily disprove that they have free will

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

i think a mole rat has free will, i think most mammals have free will. i think most things that don't have free will are smol and normally hive animas [like ants or garden gnomes].

for the purpose of this i believe that if you could not tell a visually identical untrained animal apart from another of its species [like by using personality not training them] then that animal has not got personality, likes dislikes and free will. dogs have different personalities with in the same breed so do mole rats so do elephants but i dont think ants do

[ijustreallylikeants]

I think I may know why you believe this.

Because these animals are so tiny and move so quickly and live in huge swarms, it’s hard to differentiate them. Speaking from personal experience here, I had an ant farm once, tried to name one, lost it immediately. But, one of these ants was slightly off-color. I nicknamed her Rose(cause she had a bit of a rose color.). After a while, I realized she had a bit of her own personality. She liked to stay up in the top left corner, didn’t like to be around some other ants.

Another big area is sensory input. Ants have terrible hearing, so they can’t exactly receive any signals we put out to them, and we can’t receive any signals/sounds they put out to us. This makes it hard to tell if they have actual personalities, since we can’t collect any info on them besides the superficial.

I think if we were actually able to distinguish them, you would see that they are individuals, but it’s just hard to tell them apart. To use your own example, Mole rats are virtually identical, but can kinds understand basic things(I think so at least, I’m the ant dude not the mole rat dude.), so it’s easier to get info on them.

Idk tho don’t trust me.

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

@molerat we have a question about mole rats

[ijustreallylikeants]

Oh so we’re just summoning the mole rat dude

Yeah that makes sense

[i-am-scared-of-ants-offical]

I don't think the naked molerat dude is coming back

[true-muonium-catto]

what does @queen-ant-offical have to say about all this

[queen-ant-offical]

Of course my children have minds of their own! All of those thoughts are just very similar to mine

[queen-ant-offical]

AHAHAHAHAHAH, I AM HERE