h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice entry, just sort I would give some army ant info.

Army ants have a reputation they do not deserve. Infact army ants only eat small animals and will not eat humans and other big animals like goats unless what ever it is, is already corpse, in which case they will - free food. There are around 150 species of army ants found mostly in the tropical and subtropical regions of Central and South America plus another 100 in Africa, asia and Australia of which a percentage are the bigger army ant which are referred to over their as driver ants. Army ants in South and central America are generally smaller than those found in Africa. Driver ants in Africa will attack and kill anythink they can get their jaws into including humans, goats and cows etc but to the native people (the Massai) they are a blessing not a pest as when the natives crops are growing the driver ants swarm and kill all the pests that would have eaten all the natives crops. The reason they can kill big prey is they have the tendancy to pour in to any openings such as ears, nose mouth etc and so suffocating the prey to death. In South Africa army ants are actually allowed in to peoples houses freely, as the people living their freely allow them in step aside and wait for the swarm to do its job. This is because the army ants gets rid of all the bugs and organic waste like dropped food from the house, and so are seen as a free house cleaning service.

Driver ants get their name from the fact that the solder ants forms a protective wall around the worker ants on their travels and essentially the soldiers drive the workers to the destination. That and the fact that a typical army ant swarm is smal in comparison to the 22 million ants that can make up a driver ant swarm.

Anyone interested can get info on army and driver ants here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/features/268feature1.shtml
http://www.answers.com/topic/driver-ant

Rik.