TH E P L A N W A S S I M P L E : J E Tdown to Trinidad, track down anest of a million army ants, suckthem up in a vacuum cleaner

and, twelve hours later, install them ina 500-square-foot glass arena back inSan Francisco.

For eight months we had been negoti-ating all the permits and design issues ofthis innovative project. No one had everattempted to keep army ants alive for awhole year in captivity. The escape-proofcages were built and tested. Cricket farmswere standing by, ready to begin shippingthe 15,000 crickets a week necessary tofeed the colony.

Then, on April 2, two weeks beforedeparture, the airline called and saidthey had canceled our flights. They hadreviewed our request and concluded it wastoo great a risk to fellow passengers toshare a plane with a million voracious

insects. Their research had revealed thatarmy ants can kill a horse and they wouldnot accept the responsibility. Despite myassurance that there would be no horseson the plane, they were adamant.

Ants are one of the great success storiesin the history of terrestrial life. There isnowhere you can live and not meet an ant.If you took all the humans alive today andthen gathered up all the world’s ants, theywould be roughly equal in weight.

Ants are the only lifeform that competeswith humans for dominance. Ants are rulersof their tiny, hidden world, a world near ourfeet that most of us ignore—unless you are akid or have a house infested with the ubiq-uitous Argentine ants. But these overlookedcreatures are essential for healthy habitats.They are the glue that holds many anecosystem together.

The dominant, big bad wolf of the antfamily are the army ants—the Huns and

Tartars of the insect world. The majorityof army ants are subterranean like thosebelonging to the genus Neivamyrmex,found in Northern California. Ourobjective, however, was to capture thespectacular South American species Ecitonburchelli, which nests and forages aboveground. Army ants never hunt alone, butinstead dispatch a pack of cooperative,leaderless hunters to locate and over-whelm prey. They run down and attacktheir victims en masse, and use theircooperative skills to dismember creaturesoften much larger than themselves andcarry their booty home.

This contrasts with other types of antswhich first send out individual scouts tolocate food sources and only later recruitadditional help. Because these wolf packssweep clean all prey within range, armyants must continually migrate to new for-aging locales and never construct perma-nent nests. Instead, they form bivouacs,temporary, above-ground nests made outof their own bodies. They link legstogether, creating a tightly woven mesh ofbodies and legs that form chambers forthe brood and queen. They also link legswhen traveling to make bridges to crossstreams and to fill in gaps in the trails.

Capturing a single army ant is very dif-ferent than capturing an entire colony.Individually, they can only inflict an irri-tating sting, but as a group, they become apack of remorseless hunters. It’s thisbehavior that caught the attention of theairline agent and grounded our mission.Reports of army ants killing horses, orneeding flamethrowers to control theirrampage, as in the story of “Leiningen vs.the Ants,” are exaggerations, but they arebased on a modicum of truth.

THE ARMY ANT DISPLAY WAS TO BEthe star exhibit of the California Acad-

emy of Sciences’ new building, due toopen in less than a month. Over the previ-ous eight months we had met with inspec-tors from the California Department ofFood and Agriculture (CDFA) and U.S.Department of Agriculture (USDA) whohad guided us through their complicatedrequirements. The ants had to be 100 per-cent contained. If a single ant specimenwere found outside the containment facili-ty, we would be shut down and the ants

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Text by BRIAN L. FISHER Photography by DONG LIN

ATTACK ONthe ARMY ANTS

How one of the largest, most complex, and most aggressive organisms on the planet was captured.

destroyed. Our secret weapon was liquidTeflon. The same stuff that keeps eggsfrom sticking to frying pans is also too slip-pery for ants to gain a footing. By buildingan overhanging barrier painted with liquidTeflon we could keep the ants in theexhibit and off the streets of San Francis-co—not that they would survive the coldweather for long.

Obtaining an import permit turned outto be much harder. Since 9/11, the trans-port of live animals has been tightly regu-lated. They can no longer be brought intothe country as personal baggage on planes.Their importation requires the use ofbonded carriers, and a five-day quaran-tine. Such a delay would kill the colony:army ants are unable to survive more thanhalf a day without food before they starteating their young. This time our secretweapons were inspectors Robert Dowellfrom the CDFA and Anthony Jacksonfrom USDA, who petitioned HomelandSecurity for a one-time exception. Final-ly, after many months of waiting, we gotour permit. The only stipulation was thatour first port of entry into the continentalUnited States must be in California, and

CALIFORNIA WILD 15

Dowell had to meet our flight to take con-trol of the animals upon entry.

With the exhibit’s opening date loom-ing, the issue now was finding a way totransport the ants. Our only hope wouldbe a private jet. The Academy reached outto its community, and seven days beforethe planned departure, a generous volun-teer offered to fly down to help captureand bring back the ants.

On to Trinidad

AW E E K B E F O R E T H E C A P T U R Ewas scheduled, I flew to the island of

Trinidad off the coast of Venezuela. Aftera two-hour discussion with customsexplaining why I was traveling with twonew yellow shop-vacs and a large genera-tor, I was allowed into the country.

By the time I arrived high up in thehills at the Asa Wright Nature Center it

was past midnight. The humid night wasfilled with the smells of the tropics. As antsforage both night and day, I set off imme-diately into the forest in search of ourprey. We had chosen Eciton burchellibecause of its broad palate—it eats all typesof live animals.

To find ants, it is easiest to walk parktrails until you find a column of raidingworkers. Focusing on the tiny circle offorest floor lit by my headlamp, I noticeda colony of ants in the genus Pachycondylarunning around their nest entrance withtheir brood clutched in their mandibles.Obviously something was afoot. I began todig up their nest and found that they werebeing attacked by subterranean army antsof the rare genus Cheliomyrmex, a groupthat had never previously been recordedfrom Trinidad. I took this as a good sign.

I spent all night and the next day look-ing for raiding columns, criss-crossing the

Left: An army ant “major”—a member of the imperial guard responsible for guard-ing the colony and the queen. Its enormous mandibles, designed for piercing, are heldhigh ready to strike. Above: Medium workers foraging. By combining their strength,they can form bridges of their own bodies, and make trapeze systems to scale smoothvertical surfaces.

16 WINTER 2005

trails and listening for the ant birds thateat insects fleeing in front of raiding antcolonies. Late in the afternoon, afterchecking every trail in the reserve, I head-ed down to a cave where a colony of oilbirds roosted. But there were still no army

ants, and I was beginning to despair. Ourplane was on a tight schedule as we had afirm date with inspectors in Puerto Rico.

As I got up to return to the center, Isaw, off to the left, a column of prey-ladenarmy ants speeding across a fallen log. I setoff to follow them in the last light of theday. They went down a steep slope to ariver, then crossed the river on bridgesbuilt with their own bodies. On the otherside, the ants went straight up a 100-footbank too steep for me to climb and disap-peared. Luckily, I found another way upand relocated the column of ants headingback to their bivouac.

A few days later, we located a secondcolony a few miles away. We decided tokeep tabs on both colonies, checking in onthem every four hours in case they beganto migrate through the forest.

We needed a way to capture the antsrapidly before they could escape andwithout getting ourselves stung—or atleast not much. We decided to test theshop-vac on a colony of leaf cutter ants.We hooked it up to the 93-pound“portable” generator and sucked away.

E C I T O N B U R C H E L L Igo through a nomadic

phase of 11 to 16 days ofhunting followed by astatary (stationary) phaseof 19 to 22 days. Duringthe statary phase, thequeen’s abdomen expandsand she begin to produce amass of eggs—up to 2.5million a year. The eggshatching into larvae marksthe end of the statary phase.

The synchronous arrivalof the mass of hungry larvaetriggers the nomadic phaseof daily raids and nightlyemigrations to a new

bivouac site. The queenstops laying eggs and herabdomen shrinks, easingthe strain of daily travel.The nomadic phase endswhen the larvae are matureand form cocoons. Withfewer mouths to feed, thecolony raids become lessfrequent. When a new gen-eration of workers emergesfrom their cocoons, thenext nomadic phase begins.It’s time to feed the nextbatch of larvae.

There are four distinctcastes of workers: minims,medium workers, submajors

and majors (soldiers).Submajors transport thefood, carrying it, and thebrood, from one nest tothe next. Majors, with bigmandibles, defend thecolony. They surroundthe queen to protect herwhen the nest is disturbed.Minims and mediumworkers forage and carefor the nest. Minims alsotend to the queen.

A worker can live up toa year, but it’s a risky job.A queen can live for fiveto ten years.

––B.F.

Life Cycle

The army ants’ bivouac. Above: Theinquiline beetle (bottom right) is an antmimic. It lives and feeds in the “nest,”trusting to its camouflage and antlikesmell. It secretes a sweet sugary fluid inreturn for room, board, and protection.

and ripped open a sectionto reveal a three-foot longsquirming mass. The firmfabric created by a half amillion linked ants seemedto turn to liquid as iratewarriors raced toward ourfeet. As we vacuumed up the first layer ofants along the outer wall of the bivouac, ahuge chamber of cocoons, the next broodready to hatch, was revealed. For ten min-utes we vacuumed every ant in sight, andthen it was over.

We put the bags into a lightweightwooden box designed to provide a view-ing port for customs inspections. But wehad little time to appreciate our formicinebeauties or celebrate a successful hunt. Bythe end of the day, a half a million antshad been transported to San Francisco,given a clean bill of health and releasedinto the waiting display area just in timefor the exhibit to open.

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Then we opened the vacuum to find athousand headless ants.

Over the next days, in between thefour-hour checks, we modified the shop-vac to prevent decapitation. We shortenedthe hose, cut off the intake flange, butstill had too many headless ants. If we losta few workers, the colony would still live,but if we killed the much larger queen,the colony would soon die. The inspiredsolution was to fill the bag first withpaper towels to cushion the ants’ landing.One day before the due departure date,we were ready.

We chose to capture the cliff-climbingcolony which was still bivouacked where Ihad found them. This script was as follows:At 4 a.m., we would check their locationone last time and hope that the ants hadnot moved to some inaccessible fallen tree.At six we were to assemble with the equip-ment at the bivouac. An hour later weneeded to be back at the nature center andready to drive to the airport for an 11 a.m.departure. This was our one chance to col-lect an army ant colony. The rehearsal wasfor one show only.

Special thanks to expedition members Dave Chan,Dong Lin, John Lattke, Ray Mendez, CarolynThomas, Chad Byers, and Shawn Byers.

Above: The antsform bivouacsby linking bod-ies and lockingtheir tarsalclaws together.

The night before, it began to rain.When I went to check on the colony, I wasrelieved that the ants had not moved, butI was now worried about the rain. Wecould not collect wet ants that wouldquickly spoil in the bags, let alone hope tonavigate the steep slopes with the heavygenerator. By morning the rain had let upand we slowly made our way to the site.With the mud and steep terrain, ourprogress seemed interminable as we labo-riously hauled the generator and shop-vacsup the slope.

Once at the site, we began by applyingduct tape to the tops of our boots, shirtcuffs, shirt buttons, and collars to keep theants out. Then we assembled the vacuumsand turned on the generator. As soon asthe generator began to hum, the bivouaccame alive. Ants began shooting out ofholes in the rotting log and scurrying in alldirections. There was no time to waste.The bivouac was dissolving.

Our rehearsals paid off. With the teamstanding three feet away from half a millionants, we sucked the last paper towels intothe bags, put our hands on the huge log,

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Chapter II: Costa Rica

THE ARMY ANT COLONY SETTLEDinto their new home in San Francisco

easily and all seemed to be going well.Then, four months into the experiment,we discovered that these fearsome predatorshad an Achilles heel. Dermestid beetles,feeding on dead crickets and molted skins,were hitchhiking in from the cricket farmthat supplied the ants their meals.

Although army ants have a reputationof devouring everything in their path, thelarvae of the beetles proved to be immunefrom attack. The larvae have long, andapparently toxic, hairs which prevented theants from grabbing hold. Instead, thetables were turned and the ant larvae and

their food supply fell prey to the beetles.The ants, which had survived longer thanany previous colony in captivity, suc-cumbed within a week.

But the museum was not ready to giveup on army ants. So last October, we madeanother foray into the tropics, this time toCosta Rica. Again, time was critical. Hav-ing located two colonies of ants, both indense tangled masses of dead branches androots, we set out at midnight, lugging ourvacuum cleaners. Angry ants rained downon us by the thousands as we vacuumedaway. It was a badly-bitten trio of biolo-gists that rushed our prize to the airportfor the first flight out. Though we fed the

ants 25,000 maggots before sealing theirtransport container, we knew they couldnot survive more than a day without food.

After a lengthy discussion to convincethe airline to accept our two oversizedcrates of very active army ants, which wereexuding a strange smell of rotten socks, werelaxed and waited for the final boardingcall. But bad weather in San Francisco sawour flight cancelled. Our choice was towait for the next flight departing in twodays, or take the last flight to Los Angeles.We made a frantic call to San Francisco,then scrambled aboard the LA flight with-out clearance to land the ants.

When we arrived, Homeland Securityinsisted they had to follow protocol andsend the ants to quarantine—in a coldwarehouse. What’s more, we had to getimport permits which, if we were lucky,would take two days. Once again, CDAInspector Robert Dowell came to our res-cue. Awoken at 2 a.m., he put on hisSuperman suit and flew down to LA onthe first plane.

By nine the ants had been cleared andUnited Airlines graciously allowed them toboard. But wait. Homeland Security insist-ed that all bags must be opened for inspec-tion—ants or no ants. Bob Dowell made itclear that if the container was opened, hewould not take responsibility for the out-come. After a brief discussion betweenDowell and the agent of the gruesome pos-sibilities of 100,000 ants escaping, the agentagreed that an x-ray would suffice. We ranfor the flight.

By midday, 30 hours after capture, hav-ing slept only three hours of the last 48,Jim Evans, Jonathan Katz, and I were backat the Museum. As we entered the antexhibit shouldering our booty in largecontainers, a large group of visiting school-children, their faces packed along the glasswall, chanted “Let them go, let them go.”This was the closest an entomologist couldhope to come to starring in a rock concert.The kids counted down from ten and, oncue, we set them free.

BRIAN L. FISHER, “the Ant Man,” isAssistant Curator of Entomology at theCalifornia Academy of Sciences. Senior Photographer DONG LIN was onhis 15th Academy expedition in 6 years.

Top: Author Brian L Fisher (right) and colleagues vacuum up close to a million armyants from a colony in Trinidad. Above: A few hours later the ants are emptied out intothe exhibit area of the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.