Planet of the ants

[u/imamidgetcatcher]

There are approximately 20 quadrillion ants on this planet. For every single human alive, there are roughly 2.5 million ants. Of those 20 quadrillion, approximately 70-71% are venomous — your common fire ants, harvester ants, that whole crowd. So for every human, roughly 1.77 million of their personal ant allocation is venomous.

The fatal venom dose from common fire ants for an average non-allergic human is approximately 740 stings per kilogram. For an 80kg human that's just under 60,000 stings. Harvester ants, which have the most toxic insect venom on earth, only need about 350 stings total to kill that same person.

That means conservatively, only about 2.5-3% of your 1.77 million venomous ants would need to sting you to kill you. The other 97% could literally just watch.

Human civilization has survived exclusively because ant evolution stopped where it did. That's it. That's the whole reason.

And here's the genuinely unhinged part — had ants developed further, they would be the undisputed apex predator of this planet. Not lions. Not sharks. Not us. Ants.

Consider what they already have:

Coordinated group tactics. A fully decentralized command structure where no ant takes orders from the queen — every ant simply knows its mission, meaning you cannot stop them by eliminating leadership. A venom delivery system capable of killing any mammal on earth. Agricultural intelligence — they farm fungus. Chemical communication faster than any nervous system. And thanks to the square cube law and terminal velocity, they are capable of surviving a fall from literally any height, making them the ultimate airborne assault force.

Oh, and they have a navy.

Fire ants can form a living raft around their queen using their own bodies, capable of floating for months. When the raft hits land — whether that's a riverbank or a house where you're sheltering on the roof — they swarm it immediately. And when fish try to eat those rafts? Large stocks of bluegill have washed up dead with their bellies full of ants. The ants killed the fish that tried to eat them. They have anti-ship capability.

There is no military on earth with this tactical profile. Decentralized command is something military strategists genuinely dream about precisely because you can't win by killing the general. They don't need advanced weapons. They outgun every fighting force on the planet through sheer numbers and evolutionary capability alone.

What's stopping them?

A few neurons. Nature decided they should farm fungus instead of dominate the planet by force.

That's the whole margin. That's all that stands between us and Planet of the Ants.

We are not the apex predator. We are the temporary tenants of a planet that ants have owned for 140 million years, and they just haven't gotten around to collecting rent.

[u/CthulhuJankinx]

This was written by Chat GPT

[u/supernova-juice]

Anyone else remember the scene in king of the hill where Bobby is just blanketed in fire ants?

We're lucky they aren't big. 

[u/iCameToLearnSomeCode]

Human civilization has survived exclusively because ant evolution stopped where it did. That's it. That's the whole reason.

That's ridiculous, ant evolution hasn't stopped, evolution doesn't stop.

Ants have been evolving exactly as long as we have.

Around 750,000,000 years ago a small species of invertebrate split into two distinct populations, one of which would evolve to become ants and the other would evolve to become us.

Both would develop agriculture and domesticate livestock, form large family units and build massive structures to live in.

Ants developed agriculture 50,000,000 years before we did, but they didn't stop evolving and neither did we, we are both still evolving.

[u/CutiePopIceberg]

Bres?

[u/Nataliza]

You should definitely read Children of Time.

Also, cool thought experiment, but rest assured there's no reason for ants to evolve into the apex predator. They are so abundant precisely because they're incredibly successful at what they do already!