In the oldest of the old rainforests, nature turns a beguiling eye; in every wink and weep of the forest, we, the leafcutters have evolved and adapted. Last night, there was a summoning; something was not right. The queen had indicated that the worker ants gather up their strength and launch into a frontal attack against the red ant colony. The red ants, as I understood were powerful stingers; with one bite, they would issue a potent mixture of poison that affects our guts and kills our appetite. Invariably, the red ants mate with their cousins within the colony, but occasionally they swerve outside and I assumed that this might have been that occasion. I was wrong. Apparently, the red ant queen had scurried out of the nest in an unusual move to protect its people from a foreign organism.
We could do with an additional nest; the news was encouraging. Something did not seem right; it is not how I remembered the red ants. They are the most courageous, although sometimes, they could do an enormous good to themselves if they had just suppressed their bubbling courage. For instance, last week, when three of us were leisurely nipping away a fallen leaf, we were confronted by a red ant. Neither of us were trespassing in the others’ territory; the bugger had no business with us, save for the uncalled for confrontation. Now, this is how we dealt with him; while two of us held him on both the extremities, the head and the gaster, I chipped away his stomach to dismember him form the middle.
We, leaf cutters are a phlegmatic lot; we are like Tolkien’s hobbits; our daily routine involves foraging for food throughout the day, bring back the loot, feed our workers, and store the rest in collective pits. If we notice anything unusual, we duck our head and meander away. For instance, yesterday, a pack of meat eater ants were pouncing upon a live cicada; we merely shut our doors, dragged the nearest leaves home and nipped away in dark silently.
Now, this is where I shall introduce myself to the readers. I am a female leaf cutter ant; I have served in the worker’s section for our present queen. But now, my wings are heavy and I must confess, it is time for mating. My allegiance to the queen necessitates that I stay supportive and subdued within the colony as a secondary queen; but in the recent summoning, the queen has made it abundantly clear that perhaps the red ants’ abandoned colony can be made home by any potential worker turned queen ant.
So, the nuptial flight begins now. I had selected ten different males for their individual qualities. As my mother, grandmother, and her mother before me have observed fasting on the day of mating, I did too. In the shadow of the pine tree, attracted by the mating pheromone, I mated for the first time. The courtship lasted for about five minutes; I kissed my first lover goodbye and followed the trails of nine more mating chemical cues. At the end, I had packed a storehouse of sperms under my belly; I was prepared to begin a colony. What followed was a dreary afternoon with some workers weeping their heart out, for I was deserting them.
By the afternoon, I had reached the gates of the abandoned colony. I can never forget the gruesome sight of dead corpses I found in the red ants’ colony. Some had their bodies locked in a tight embrace with their guts pitted and head porous; strewn around the perimeters of the colony were mandibles locked in each other. Antennas and mandibles with no heads to prop on; this was not what I had in mind when I stepped out of my parent colony. But I cannot return now; to face the ignominy is one thing but to face the wrath of territorial confrontation with the same workers that I had once fought alongside? I could not have stomached that. I had to make the corpse land my humble abode.
Unfertilised eggs, four of them, developed into male ants; they were too weak and their immunity a nought. But they were very obedient; my first workers. I will always remember them, a queen always does. The rest six were fertilised and they developed into wingless, sterile workers; I chose one amongst them and paid special attention, lest the nascent colony be left without a queen in the event of my premature death. My first workers, with their weak mandibles and fragile antennas, foraged, cared for the eggs and enlarged the nest gradually. Throughout this time, I had very conveniently pushed back the memory of corpses and locked mandibles with no heads, into the far corner of my mind. Now, it was time to retrieve and ponder over it.
Today, we are only nine of us left. When I was feeding the chosen worker to become queen ant, three of my workers presented themselves before me. On their backs was the weakest ant I had ever seen in my life; it was palpitating with fever soaring so high that I thought the head would explode in flames. A worker ant usually lives for up to three years; this one, only in its first year, seemed to have acquired an infection so bad that it looked impossible to save it. Its antennae were drooping like the weight of the world was on its two puny stems; its mandibles were cracking at the roots and the defence mechanism was compromised; the stomach was unusually bloated with yellow spots on it; eyes were breaking apart like scales of fish; the tubular legs were stiff, immobile and it had to carried around.
Next morning, I left for my parent colony; to seek advice on the situation and possibly loan some workers to protect my colony for the time being. We were living in a bizarre colony that was abandoned and I had a feeling the red ants left for a reason. After two hours of prolonged and intense discussions with the elder queen, her seven companions and the colony’s doctors, I was duly discharged. I had hoped to bring along the doctor and some soldiers; in fact, this morning, I had promised to my workers before leaving “Courage my workers. This is a vulnerable time for us; the disease is strong, but our resilience incurable” wiping the chemical deposit on my mandible, I noted “my visit to the parent colony shall bear fruits of solidarity. Wait for my return. Do not lose your courage. Stay virtuous”
But on my return, I found the entire colony save the chosen worker to become queen had been infected. The doctor at the parent colony refused to accompany me. He said “All the symptoms indicate towards the zombie fungi attack. Stay back; there is nothing you can do.” To this the elder queen added “yes. If all goes well. We might find you another new colony. Mate again this season and go live a new life”. I plodded the doctor to come see the victim. But he denied. However, he added “the fungus attaches itself in the form of spores to the ants. Then it gains access to the brain, kills it and powers the stomach to reproduce there. Death comes to the host in no more than two days.” Here he paused and proceeded with an emphasis “and the dead ant wakes up. It meanders around until it finds a suitable place; a place where the live ants return to. Once settled, the zombie ant’s belly explodes into a flurry off spores which settle themselves on the innocent live ants.”
The queen, I thought would be more understanding. But she blatantly rejected “I won’t compromise my workers in a dying cause”. I returned empty handed to the empty anthill. At first I thought my workers had absconded; well I can forgive that. It occurred to me that if what the doctor said was true, then I should be able to find the zombie ant meandering about to find a suitable place. “But what would the place be” I asked myself “where would my workers return to?”
I found my workers dead under a pine tree that was strewn with green leaves. This is where my obedient workers returned to; to nip away leisurely at the thick veins of fresh green leaves. I noticed that the zombie ant’s stomach had exploded; its mandibles were locked against a leaf. Spores had filtered through the defenceless bodies of the other workers; their mandibles were all pretending to nip away the veins of leaves. This is how it had to end? My first colony wiped off the face of the forest by the zombie fungi.
We were only two of us left; the queen and the potential queen. The thought of suicide occurred to me; I only had to step into the marsh where the corpses of my eight workers swathed themselves in broken mandibles and tapered antennas with no heads to prop against. But I guess it was late for a suicide. The doctor’s words rang in my ears “remember to stay away from the spores. After the splurge from a dead ant’s stomach; in open air, the spores remain alive for a day or two at most.”
What could I do? Queen without workers is no colony. I cannot return to the parent colony - the defeat, the humiliation, the ignominy… So, I lived on until one day when the doctor sent me a note through one of the worker ants. In it was written “if you are reading this, you must be alive. But it must be a shameful life. So I am sending you the dry spores of the fungus I had collected in my research. Remember how I told you that the spores live only for a day or two in open air?” here, there was a huge ink blot to indicate that he had paused in his writing to choose his words more carefully in what he was going to write. And so it turned out to be just that. “The spores solidify their outer layers; the core is still alive and they continue to stay alive for one whole year. You only have to prop these dry spores in marshy lands and the core will come alive. Au Revoir”
So, I revisited the area under the pine trees; neatly ensconced the dry spores in a pit filled with water. Here with a gurgling sound, like onion peels, the layers peeled themselves and the core exploded all over me. Back in the deserted ant hill, we, the queen and the potential queen tied ourselves to two pillars, lest we won’t scurry around after death and infect other colonies. So this is how it ended.
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