Usually, when we discover ants* in the house, especially in the kitchen, we immediately take action to get rid of them, so afraid we are they might take over the territory and invade our storage room. The same reflex we first sowed in our house in Kona too. But then we made an observation and reconsidered our approach. We saw how industriously the little creatures were removing crumbs and other debris from in-between the keys of our computers’ keyboards. They even crawled inside to take out little food leftovers and dust corns. We would have been quite stupid not to let them do the job. From that moment we changed our attitude and enjoyed the silent coexistence with these tiny restless animals.
*Ants are on this earth since about 110 to 130 millions years. The diversity of their species went along with the rise of the flowering plants. Today our globe is habitat for round about 22.000 species. This is at least what biology is teaching as per today. Ants thrive in most ecosystems except the antarctica an other unfriendly places. Their biomass equals that of all humans. There are approximately one million ants for one human on earth. They live in colonies and like us they are familiar with the division of work. They have an elaborate communication system more robust than ours it seems.
More from our series “Alienation, soft approaches, encounters:
1. Turtle swaying in the waters of the Pacific
2. Life outstretched between amazing resilience and scary fragility
Okay I’m covidncen. Let’s put it to action.