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This makes me think of a couple things. One, they must be running out of names! Although I suppose ants don’t have names like Fred and Emily and Rajesh, they’ve probably got names like “383552JKX” or “Sector 5 gatherer 690″. The other thing I thought about is from T.H. White’s The Once And Future King, where the young man destined to be King Arthur (called “the Wart” for a good part of the book) is transformed into an ant by Merlin for educational purposes. During his time as an ant, Wart learn the two basic utterances in the ants’ language: “done” and “not done”, as well as the totalitarian motto: EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY. When asked what he is doing by a fellow ant, Wart replies “I am not doing anything” which completely bumfoozles the other ant. Wart is then reported as “not done”, by which he is meant to be an insane ant.
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
