Miscellaneous ant, face, MAGLEV
Basic small ant from MAGLEV impact zone on Beltsville Agriculture Research Center. For something so small there is a lot of architecture going on here. I imagine it is identifiable to species. Perhaps a Myrmica? In addition to just the unbelievable numbers of individuals per acre there are 128 species known from Maryland alone. The amount of energy that passes through the ant kingdom with their endless toil spent tending, eating, rototilling the leaf letter, eating vegetation, perforating the soil, eating other insects and providing food, forage, and parasitism possibilities for all sorts of other creatures is worth a meditation on the scale of the individual human versus an ant. Reminds me of one of my favorite Twain quotes (referring here to the ultrafamous Admiral Nelson of 100 years ago...).
"Nelson would have been afraid of ten thousand fleas, but a flea wouldn't be afraid of ten
thousand Nelsons."
- Mark Twain
oh, photo by the inimitable Cole Cheng. And yes, all ants will be gone if the MAGLEV is built.
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde. Original public domain image from Flickr