Leiniegan Versus the Ants

As a child, I watched a TV Sunday matinee, I think on channel 11. I saw "Amazon" with Chalton Heston. He is a fearless colonizing man who, when he learns a horde of army ants are coming to devour his cacao plantation deep in the Brazilian rainforest, he will not yield. All the other planters flee but he believes man's knowledge will outwit the ants! He will build moats! Fire breaks, all sorts of other clever Charlton Heston kind of "Home Alone" gadgets but much more macho and sweaty. 

These ants, are actually a real thing and terrify many species and humans in Centro America. The scene where the careless drunk guard wakes up to find himself being devoured by ants scares me to this day (it's pretty gruesome - good special effects for the time)

A few days ago at dusk I  sat happily at a table adjacent to the pool and jungle when my feet caught fire. All my toes were being bitten. Out of nowhere army ants had invaded the area. While not as bad as soldier ants these things turned the entire surface of the patios black with ant massings. I have never seen anything like it. Trails of the ants marched 5 by 5 swarming the place, coming from every direction in multiple groups.

Apparently they are blind and only march following scent and raid and kill all other insects or small mammals in their path. The Ticos call them 'limpiores' (likely improper spelling) which means 'cleaners' as they rid houses of everything from mice to cockroaches entirely.

I ran to the front office trying to avoid any of the massing of ants and eventually the German owner showed up with a few cans of insecticide sort of rolling his eyes. He said 'it's the season, they just come for food'

'I don't know' I said, 'I understand ants but these are a helluva a lot of ants.'

He walked up and then began to shake his head repeating : 'ooff! offfoo! oofff!' as if he couldn't believe it. 'See' I said, 'that is a lot of ants'.

Many spray cans later paired with multiple hoses only one very large mass of ants were left marching down the pathway to some other destination.

They were gone the next day but the Tico staff had to spend a lot of time sweeping away ant remains.

And by the way, in "Amazon" Heston's moat was useless. The ants figured out how to use leaves as boats and invaded the plantation nonetheless. Heston covered himself in petrol and blew up some dam somwhere. The plantation was saved. 

But not Heston the actor. So the story goes he didn't want to cover himself in gross thick oil filming in the deep tropical jungle so they decided instead to cover him in molasses which looks like oil.  

Guess how that turned out.