2007-01-15 03:40:30 · 13 answers · asked by justcurious 1 in Home & Garden ➔ Other - Home & Garden
Ants are useful for clearing out insect pests and aerating the soil. On the other hand, they can become annoyances when they invade homes, yards, gardens and fields. Carpenter ants damage wood by hollowing it out for nesting.
In some parts of the world large ants have been used as sutures by pressing the wound together and applying ants along it. The ant in defensive attitude seizes the edges in its mandibles and locks in place. The body is then cut off and the mandibles can remain in place for up to three days closing the wound.
Some species, called killer ants, have a tendency to attack much larger animals during foraging or in defending their nests. Human attacks are rare, but the stings and bites can be quite painful and in large enough numbers can be disabling.
The Masai of Africa had an abiding respect for the Siafu Ants, voracious predators that consume a large amount of insects and are welcomed for the benefit they bring to farmers, as they will eliminate all pests from a crop and quickly move on.
2007-01-15 03:50:56 · answer #1 · answered by babitha t 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
What a super question?
If you had said what is the use of an ant then those answers are relevant ie together with other things (eg earthworms) they help to create the top soil etc. They are members of the wasp family which found a damn good ecological niche and weren't they successful.
However to say what is their purpose implies that there is one that can be seen at this level. In other words ants are there to help out ant eaters and take their part in The Grand Design. Where there's a watchmaker there's a watch . . thassort of thing. Surely we have got beyond the idea of a celestial toymaker.
Which creation is more beautiful, a purely mechanical automaton or a brain which makes its own decisions for right or wrong?
Guess my answer.
2007-01-15 04:07:48 · answer #2 · answered by Richard T 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A single ant? To serve its queen. The colony? Local cleanup. They're end-of-line scavengers.
2007-01-15 03:54:08 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Natures dustmen. Clear the rubbish.
2007-01-15 03:45:22 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
In "the wild" they will take away rotting corpses of dead insects or fruit, so they are like little waste disposal units
2007-01-15 03:45:13 · answer #5 · answered by SAcat 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
To attend to every need of an uncle ----- I never was very good at the old spelling
2007-01-15 03:45:53 · answer #6 · answered by surdy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
So you should waste 5 minutes of your life figuring it out and asking the darn question lol
2007-01-15 03:44:42 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
To steal your food from a picnic.
2007-01-15 03:47:35 · answer #8 · answered by Michelle 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think Aardvarks would really miss them if they ate the last one
2007-01-15 03:45:29 · answer #9 · answered by steve223261 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
leave unwashed picnic stuff lying around in France and you'll see what terrific cleaners they are!
2007-01-15 03:53:43 · answer #10 · answered by vin5518 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋