Ants!

September 24th, 2022| Topic: RaMbLeS | 2

It is unlikely you’ve ever spent time wondering about ants. Even if you have, it is even more unlikely that you’ve excogitated about the number of said insects.

But in the long shot hope that you have, your faithful blogger is herewith providing the answer, courtesy of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

20,000,000,000,000,000.

Yup, there are twenty quadrillion of these things crawling about on planet earth. So say researchers from the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, and others from Universität Würzberg, University of Western Australia, and from Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia. And they made this pronouncement in “The Abundance, Biomass, and Distribution of Ants on Earth,” published last week.

Yup, not only did they count all the ants on earth, they also calculated this species total biomass.

The authors:

The astounding ubiquity of ants has prompted many naturalists to contemplate their exact number on Earth, but systematic and empirically derived estimates are lacking. Integrating data from all continents and major biomes, we conservatively estimate 20 × 1015 (20 quadrillion) ants on Earth, with a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon. This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals and equals 20% of human biomass.”

12,000,000 tons.

Yup, twelve million tons of ants. With us. On earth.

Now you know.

While these questions may appear trivial at first, they have enormous implications for our understanding of natural processes since ants are such key players in most ecosystems and have numerous and complex interactions with other organisms.”

Co-lead author Dr. Patrick Schultheiss, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Hong Kong adds:

For decades, ant researchers have been incredibly busy studying ant communities the world over. They have collected thousands of ant samples to identify the species and often counted all the ants as well when publishing their results in scientific articles. We were able to compile such data from nearly 500 different studies from all over the world and written in many different languages. In this way, we have been able to quantify the density of ants in various parts of the globe, and also to estimate the total number of ants on Earth.”

As you might expect, most of these critters are found in the tropics.

Said the other co-lead author Dr. Sabine Nooten, at the Universität Würzberg:

The sheer number of the insects is hard to grasp and appreciate. Ants are particularly abundant in forests, and surprisingly, in arid regions but become less common in human-made habitats, with potential consequences for the ecological services (e.g., decomposition, pest control) they may provide.”

And the authors of the article confess their twenty-quadrillion estimate is only “conservative.” Indeed, it is believed that that only about half of the estimated total of 20,000 ant species have been classified!

Even the Bible considers these tiny things to be worth of taking note of. They, the writer of the Book of Proverbs asserted, are wise and hardworking.

Go to the ant, O sluggard, observe her ways and be wise,
which, having no chief, officer or ruler,
Prepares her food in the summer
And gathers her provision in the harvest.
How long will you lie down, O sluggard?
When will you arise from your sleep?
“A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest ….”
Your poverty will come in like a vagabond
And your need like an armed man.
Proverbs 6:6–11

Maybe we can learn a thing or two from those twenty-quadrillion numbering little beasts!

SOURCE:
Study Finds; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences