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November 20, 2001

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 * Ant Slavery *

Its amazing what you can find in your own back yard.
I know this picture isn't very clear so let me explain.
I extracted this image from a video tape and the quality of the individual image isn't very good.
What you are looking at is a red ant and a slightly larger, black ant.
The red ant is disciplining the black ant. For you see the red ant colony had abducted the black ants and were forcing them to perform specific tasks and duties. They were using them as slaves.
I walked outside my apartment one day and noticed these busy little red ants parading across a small clearing. They all seemed to be carrying something. Some were carrying small white objects while others were carrying larger black objects. Using a small stick I tripped one of the ants (ha ha) and he dropped his load. His load suddenly spread its legs out and displayed itself as a black ant, actually larger than the read ant. The black ant took a moment and scrambled around as if it were trying to figure out where it was. It then tried to escape when the red ant found it again, played a brief game of tug-of-war, rolled the black any back up into a ball and resumed its course.
The red ants had abducted and were carrying the black ants, and their small, white larvae, to the red any colony where they took them down under ground. On the outside I could see the black ants working, cleaning, and building the red ant colony, while the red ants maintained control and supervision.
This one in this picture here seemed to be supervising this particular area with a very aggressive demeanor.
I know this sounds quite remarkable and unbelievable, and I wouldn't have believed it myself had I not seen it, but I do have the whole experience on video tape. The red ants were using the black ants as slaves. I never was able to see what they were doing with the larvae and frankly, I don't think I want to know.