Dulosis

Ants are often used as images of what teamwork can achieve. The six-legged scuttlers are able to lift twenty times their own weight. They gather in colonies of up to 700,000 and when they combine their efforts, they can achieve pretty special feats. If humans could match their strength, then the Aston Villa fans traipsing out of Wembley this afternoon would be able to carry a fully-loaded Titanic with them back up the M1 (that took me quite a while on the calculator by the way).

  Whilst we laud praises upon the ant, we are unaware that the Chuckle Brothers' "To me, to you" work ethic is not something all of the ants share. Dulosis is the problem and the issue that has got the William Wilberforce of the ant world up in legs (all six of them). Dulosis is the enslavement of ants by other more nasty ants. The way they go about it though is what makes it even more chilling. An invading ant army storm another ants' colony and steal the pupae (ant frogspawn) and then when it develops, they force the youngsters to work for them, with the slaves feeding their slave-masters the food they forage. The insect kingdom is a darker place than I realised. The 1998 animated movie Antz made me think that termites were ants' main problem; surely the film should have highlighted the danger within the ants' own ranks.

  We should think more carefully before placing ants on a pedestal and look a little closer at who it is that is shifting the Antanic to the ocean for its maiden voyage. 

Disclaimer: not all ants act in this way.

Requested by Adam Jarvis