Belgian Teenagers Found With 5,000 Ants to Be Sentenced by Kenyan Court in Two Weeks

The two men had entered Kenya on a tourist visa and were staying in a guest house in the western town of Naivasha. Their lawyer said that her clients did not know what they were doing was illegal.

Two Belgian teenagers who were found with thousands of ants valued at more than €8,000 and allegedly destined for European and Asian markets will be sentenced in two weeks, a Kenyan magistrate has said. Njeri Thuku, sitting at the court in Kenya's main airport, said she would not rush the case but would take time to review environmental impact and psychological reports filed in court before passing sentence on 7 May.

Belgian nationals Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, both 19 years old, were arrested on 5 April with 5,000 ants at a guest house. They were charged on 15 April with violating wildlife conservation laws.

Apparently several species of ants are promising research subjects in cancer research and other healthcare related research. Maybe that is why these were sought out.

I wonder if it was this species, also found in Ivory Coast? Or was it a particular species they were looking for?

“The Matabele ants (Megaponera analis), which are widespread south of the Sahara, have a narrow diet: They only eat termites. Their hunting expeditions are dangerous because termite soldiers defend their conspecifics – and use their powerful mandibles to do so. It is therefore common for the ants to be injured while hunting.

If the wounds become infected, there is a significant survival risk. However, Matabele ants have developed a sophisticated healthcare system: they can distinguish between non-infected and infected wounds and treat the latter efficiently with antibiotics they produce themselves. This is reported by a team led by Dr Erik Frank from Julius-Maximilians-Universität (JMU) Würzburg and Professor Laurent Keller from the University of Lausanne in the journal Nature Communications.”

That’s one amazing adaption of nature. I hope they don’t have a useless Obama-type ant come in and screw everything up.

“You didn’t build this hill.”

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