Al Batt, Tales from Exit 22

It had to be an optical illusion.

There were leaves marching in a line across the ground.

The line undulated like a conga line of tipsy dancers.

They were either leaves that had legs or insects that looked just like leaves.

In actuality, they were neither of those things. They were leafcutter ants.

The tiny, blind ants, each about a millionth my size, were ubiquitous as I traveled about Costa Rica.

Columns of tiny marching leaves were everywhere. These ecological events offered little green sails marching one way, empty ants the other.

The ants marched purposefully. They were all sisters. They did the endless parades without the benefit of a single traffic controller or grand marshal.

The leaves are as much as 30 times the weight of the quarter- to half-inch ants carrying them. It would be like me carrying a Cadillac Escalade. This is even more amazing than the small schoolchildren I see carrying those huge backpacks. The ants carry this burden for up to 1,000 feet long at a speed equivalent to a man doing a four-minute mile. And the ants do it without using steroids. If ants dream, I’ll bet they dream big.

It appears that the ants are carrying parasols. They grasp the leaves in their mandibles and walk while clutching the leaves over their heads like umbrellas.

The ants work 24/7. They neither bowl nor golf. The leafcutters cut pieces of leaves from many different plants and carry them back to their nest. Work is easier if you break it up into little chunks. The cargo often has hitchhikers; other ants traveling on the leaves. These ants are not loafers. They travel on the leaves either to clean the leaves or to protect the ant carrying the leaf from a parasitic fly (the coffin fly) that wishes to lay an egg in an ant’s mouth.

Once at the colony, the leaf-cutting ants pass the leaves on to the gardening ants.

The colony can have as many as 1,000 entrances and 2,000 chambers. I measured one colony and found it to be 12 feet wide and 18 feet long. The colony could be 15-20 feet deep. The smaller ants take the leaf pieces and cut them into smaller ones. They mix the leaves into a pulp with their saliva. It is this compost that they use to grow a fungus.

The ants use the leaves as a medium for growing fungi that they use as food. The ants are tiny farmers. They utilize 20 percent of the available foliage in a rain forest. A colony of 7 to 9 million ants can use 75 pounds of leaves a day, about the same as consumed daily by a cow. Besides leaves, the ants also make use of some flowers and occasionally pieces of fruit. The leafcutters aerate the soil and produce a nutrient rich fertilizer.

The ants are not the strong, silent type. They make wee sounds as they work.

I could almost hear the ants singing &8220;I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.&8221;

I remember sprawling out on the ground as a child, enchanted in the observation of the Lilliputian world of ants and their activities. I liked ants. They were easy to spell. The tiny terrestrial creatures captivated me. Ants are fun to watch.

Perhaps it was the admonition from Proverbs. &8220;Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways and be wise.&8221;

Or maybe it was because I had read that if I added the brains of 40,000 ants together, their cumulative gray matter would be the same size as mine. I am sure they would have done much better in calculus than I did.

I was an ant to them. A gi-ant.

I have always been intrigued by social insects. Altruism at work. Watching ants is a lesson.

Ants teach me that large tasks can be accomplished when many work together.

The ants remind me of the importance of the little things in life.

The little things like the cool side of a pillow, socks that don’t fall down, a kind word, and a loved one’s smile.

If I cannot appreciate the little things in life, the big things will mean nothing to me.

As incredible as it sounds, the fact is that the total weight of all the ants on the earth matches the weight of the entire human race.

I have to watch the ants. John Muir said, &8220;The sun shines not on us, but in us.

The rivers flow not past us, but through us.&8221;

There is magic in the world.

(Hartland resident Al Batt’s column appears every Wednesday.)