Posted on 09/21/2022 1:22:49 PM PDT by Red Badger
Counting ants is a bit like counting grains of sand on a beach. But six researchers have proved they were up for the task. They’ve come up with the latest—and most comprehensive—estimate of the number of ants in the world: 20 quadrillion. That’s 12 megatons of biomass—more than all the wild birds and mammals taken together.
Ants are important ecosystem engineers, moving dirt, distributing seeds, and recycling organic matter. There has been some research to see how ants are distributed around the world, but there was no global estimate of how many there are.
So for the work, researchers combed through 12,000 reports from databases in many languages, including Bulgarian and Indonesian, finding 489 studies with rigorous enough methods of collecting and counting ants to be included. Most of the studies were not focused on ants per se but on larger questions of biodiversity and evolution and just happened to sample ants. The team was surprised to find how concentrated ants are in the tropics, being most plentiful there in savannas and moist forests.
The new estimate is two to 20 times higher than previous ones, the team reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But is likely more accurate, the authors contend, because it is the first “bottom-up” effort that relied on actual counts of ants caught around the world.
They’ll have to fight the roaches and rats for it.
I have a billion fire ants of my own in my yard.
Don’t be greedy… everyone having a pic nic will receive their own allotment.
Meh. This is just an evil government plot. They are using this to bring the word, “quadrillion” into the common vernacular so we won’t be so paralyzed by its upcoming use in articles regarding the economy, national debt and taxes.
😉
Now do uncles!
It helps to learn that the number of possible, unique games of chess possible exceeds the number of atoms in the observable universe.
“Scientists estimate that Earth contains 7.5 sextillion sand grains. That is 75 followed by 17 zeros. That’s a lot of sand.”
‘More stars than grains of sand on Earth? You bet’
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/lifestyle/2019/02/05/more-stars-than-grains-of-sand-on-earth-you-bet/60474645007/
Roaches and rats would be extinct shortly after humans are extinct, since both roaches and rats are species that have adapted to live as parasites to human civilization. Once we are gone, they lose their ‘free lunch’.
Ants would continue blissfully unaware that anything has changed.
How much methane and carbon dioxide does this huge biomass emit in the process of living and dying? Bet it greatly exceeds all the carbon dioxide and methane emitted by all the cattle herds, sheep flocks, confinement-housed swine and even humanity put together.
Yet apparently there is no call for the regulation of ants and their numbers.
Well, that explains why the fire ants and others in the yard are such a nuisance, like Mongol hordes constantly moving or on the attack. The little SOBs have an even greater advantage in numbers than I had realized.
12 million tons. How many greenies will that feed for a year?
Q. How many ants live on Earth?
A. None. Ants live in the earth.
Cant.....................
LOL
Until we learn to communicate with bees and ants and colonial insects, we can forget about communicating with extra planetary aliens
I’ve had that same thought.
We can’t even talk to chimpanzees, gorillas, dolphins and whales, that are supposedly as intelligent as we are, beyond a few simple commands and phrases.
If we can’t have a ‘talk’ to these creatures, how will we ever ‘talk’ to ones from another planet?.................
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