During the civil war era, families were longing for loved ones to return from the war. The popular song, "Johnny Comes Marching Home", written by the Irish-American band leader Patrick Gilmore, was put on paper in 1863. Patrick Gilmore was born in Ballygal, Ireland on December 25, 1829. He traveled to the United States in 1848 and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1858 his band was enlisted into the military and he was made bandmaster general. He was then tasked to re-organized military music making. It is unknown when or who transfered this popular tune into the popular nursery song "The Ants Go Marching One By One". In any case, this is a song that many young children grew up singing with their family and friends.
Myrmecology is the study of ants. Ants have been around since the Cretaceous period and there are currently more than 12,000 known species. They inhabit most of the world, the tropics being their favorite homes were the most diverse species are found. Human interactions with ants has been positive and negative. We have had many problems with them invading our homes and have designed pesticides just for them. On the other hand we have also used them to our advantage, for instance we have used ant species with large mandibles for stitching our wounds.
Their combined worldwide biomass is probably equal to the human race. They have colonized almost every land mass on earth. In the tropics of Brazil, their biomass is roughly four times the biomass of all other vertebrates in the jungle (Ring, pg. 29). Not only are they very successful, they can perform amazing feats of lifting up to 100 times it's own weight as seen in this image from the BBC. It has been found that they can change the size and shape of their feet in order to lift such incredible weight. The pads on their feet are self cleaning and can stick to almost any surface. This ability aids them in dragging back food to the nest or moving deceased ants to the burial chambers in their nests. Scientists have been studying this amazing ability in hopes to create super glues for the future (BBC, Weightlifting ant is photo winner).
Their lives are very similar to ours, being very social creatures. In a sense, they too have a caste system, cities and individual cultures depending on the species. Their underground nests have bedrooms, storage areas even burial chambers. They all have jobs to perform and goals to reach. We even have things yet to learn from their organized way of live, like how they cooperate so well with each other, rarely fighting within their our colonies. One thing is for sure in my opinion, ants survived the downfall of the dinosaurs, and they will most like survive here on Earth long past our end.
Their lives are very similar to ours, being very social creatures. In a sense, they too have a caste system, cities and individual cultures depending on the species. Their underground nests have bedrooms, storage areas even burial chambers. They all have jobs to perform and goals to reach. We even have things yet to learn from their organized way of live, like how they cooperate so well with each other, rarely fighting within their our colonies. One thing is for sure in my opinion, ants survived the downfall of the dinosaurs, and they will most like survive here on Earth long past our end.