![]() Such practices include traffic management, public health efforts, crop domestication and, perhaps most intriguingly, warfare: the concentrated engagement of group against group in which both sides risk wholesale destruction. Scientists have long known that certain kinds of ants (and termites) form tight-knit societies with members numbering in the millions and that these insects engage in complex behaviors. I have spent months documenting such deaths through a field camera that I use as a microscope, yet I still find it easy to forget that I am watching tiny insects-in this case, a species known as Pheidologeton diversus, the marauder ant. ![]() I back off with my camera, gasping in the humid air of the Malaysian rain forest, and remind myself that the rivals are ants, not humans. Suddenly, three foot soldiers grab an enemy and hold it in place until one of the bigger warriors advances and cleaves the captive’s body, leaving it smashed and oozing. Utterly devoted to duty, the fighters never retreat from a confrontation-even in the face of certain death. Tens of thousands sweep ahead with a suicidal single-mindedness. ![]() ![]() the scale of the violence is almost incomprehensible, the battle stretching beyond my field of view. The raging combatants form a blur on all sides.
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