Two young scientists have come up with a book that opens up the fascinating world of ants.
CARL SAGAN once said that most of us go through life as if there is no external world. We do not stop to observe the myriad creatures that share this earth with us. One living thing that goes almost unnoticed, in spite of its omnipresence, is the humble ant. With the growth of socio-biology as a discipline, this insect began to receive considerable scientific attention.
The study of ants has developed as a branch within the larger field of entomology and acquired its own name myrmecology. New technological tools provided further momentum for this study. Now, two young myrmecologists, Ajay Narendra and Sunil Kumar M, have come up with a dazzling new book, On a Trail with Ants: A Handbook of the Ants of Peninsular India, which opens up a whole new world. The authors concern about ants is part of their commitment to make natural history popular among non-specialists.
The story of this book is itself a saga of perseverance. The authors, both scientists, decided to campaign for an increased awareness about ants. They lament that these ubiquitous creatures do not get mentioned much in popular science literature. They also point out that other than the ground-breaking work by Lt. Col. Bingham, Ants and Cuckoo-wasps of British India, published as part of the Fauna of British India series in 1903, there was no other study in this subject.
Ajay Narendra and Sunil Kumar decided to fill this gap and began work on a book. This book was also to serve the dual purpose of celebrating their completion of a decade of antwatching and to commemorate the centenary of Binghams book. They raised money through donations from wildlife enthusiasts, collected photographs and networked with ant specialists all over the world. The book took shape as a collective effort.
The book is divided into two parts: the first one gives us an overview of the world of ants and details of life in the colony. It incorporates the latest findings on the subject. The second is a field guide that describes the species and provides the keys to identify them. The fascinating world of ants is captured in colour and ink drawings for us. The authoritative text portrays in detail the life and activities of ants which form an important dimension of the earths biodiversity there are 11,931 species of ants, varying in size from 40 mm to 1 mm. About 25 per cent of the total animal biomass of this world is made up of ants.
The remarkable aspect of ants is that they are social insects and they divide their work in the colony based on factors such as age, social interaction and even size. What we read about their organisation and work in a colony is bound to change our anthropocentric way of seeing this world. Ants are everywhere, having colonised varied habitats in all corners of the earth, including our homes. Largely found in tropical countries, they are absent only in extremely cold areas such as Antarctica.
Ants occupy wide-ranging ecological niches, from the canopy of a tree in a rainforest to subterranean burrows or a rotting log. This way, they make maximum use of available resources.
They are now being recognised as ecological indicators like birds. For instance, if you see the closed canopy specialist or the species that nests in leaf litter, it indicates the pristine and undisturbed nature of that forest. Over millennia, ants have evolved a close relationship with plants, animals and other creatures. They pollinate and even disperse seeds. Some of the sap-sucking creatures are protected by ants, which act like a security agency for them.
There is a tree that develops a hollow cavity in its trunk to enable a particular species of ants to have its colony. In the tropical forests of southern India certain species of arboreal ants build a large abode, called the Pagoda nest. These ants create a carton-like nest, by chewing leaves and mixing it with secretions from their salivary glands, on trees. The Rufous-backed woodpecker lays its eggs in this. These arboreal ants, though of the predator variety, do not attack the eggs or the nestlings.
Ants navigate through a complex chemical trail left by other ants. One can notice that when ants move in a single file, it is never in a straight line. When an ant stands guard at the entrance of its colony, it checks each ant to ensure that it belongs to its clan and relies on chemical traces for this. Chemicals play a crucial role in the lives of ants and humans have benefited by studying this. Ants use certain chemicals to preserve their food from fungi. This element is now used in the pharmaceutical industry. Just as the dance of the bee, the behaviour of ants can provide scientific insights.
The illustrations in the book support the text admirably. The line drawings and cartoons have been done with the minimalism that recall Japanese paintings and focus on the subject at hand sharply. The keys and the signage are imaginative and appropriate. It makes the field guide part of the book very user-friendly. Nearly 50 species of ants found commonly in peninsular India are introduced. Photographs, which make identification easy, illustrate the second section on species.
Digital technology has extended the frontiers of nature photography, particularly micro-work. It has been fully utilised in this book, which carries about 150 photographs. The pictures by Ajay Narendra and S. Karthikeyan, the latter known for his butterfly photographs, are remarkable. Insect photography is tricky. There are issues with light, for one thing. One is working with high magnification here and so any mistake can be overblown too. Therefore, one has to ensure extra stability. Also as ones subject is on the move all the time, one has to juggle with very little depth of field. Particularly impressive is Kalyan Varmas photograph of an ant stinging the aged queen ant in order to overthrow her. We are told that the coup was successful. There is even a thoughtful note on making artificial nests for ants in the book, so that one can observe their life.
It is evident that close attention has been paid to designing the book, an aspect that is often neglected in India. The colours chosen, the fonts used, the paper selected and the layout point to the care given by the publishers. This book is a delight to handle and it is an inspiring example. This is indeed a milestone publication, much as Salim Alis The Book of Indian Birds published in 1941. In the otherwise carefully crafted work, an obsolete name such as pariah kite sticks out. Not only is there a new name for this bird but this derogatory prefix has even been yanked off the Oxford Dictionary.
The book leaves untouched a whole corpus of lore, mythology and fables relating to ants in our country. The sthalapurana of the late Chola temple in Tiruverumbur near Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu has an interesting story connected to ants. The devas, frightened of the belligerent asuras, took the form of ants and climbed a small rocky hill every day to worship at a temple, which stood on top of it . Moved by this devotion, Siva, the presiding deity of the temple, assumed the name Erumbeswarar, or the Lord of Ants. Whence the name Tiruverumbur (Village of Ants) to the village.
A poem from the medieval Tamil anthology Ahananooru talks of poor people breaking up an anthill to get the grains stored by ants. And there is a proverb in Tamil: Erumboora kal kuzhiyum (by the constant trail of ants, even a rock can get worn).
ON A TRAIL WITH ANTS
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