Ken Baker and Cocoa(Photo: Submitted)

Karl Marx was right, socialism works. Its just that he got the wrong species. - E.O. Wilson

I spent the last two weeks reading up on ants, learning and re-learning all manner of intriguing bits about their biology and the diverse ways their behaviors impact human interests. And now, with my fingers dead on the keyboard, Ive no clear idea what to write about them, how to proceed to the next paragraph.

What can you say that isnt already common knowledge without having to delve into the technical details that only specialists care about? How do you discuss the important differences between one miniature household intruder and the next without making use of that specialists arcane knowledge and his or her high-powered microscope?

A big part of the problem is that there are so many species of ants a 2019 study reported 143 forms for just Ohio, and worldwide over 22,000 species have been named. Each species has its own intriguing story. Where do you start?

So todays column willjust be a hodgepodge of ant and ant-related trivia that has somehow caught my attention.

At 91 years of age, , E. O. Wilson, Harvard emeritus professor in entomology, is one of the worlds best known living scientists. Certainly it would be a rare biologist who is unfamiliar with his name. Odd thing, perhaps, for an Alabama boy who first gained professional recognition for his work in myrmecology, the study of ants.

Fair to say he went on to explore a few other areas of interest, founding such thriving fields of study as island biogeography, sociobiology and biodiversity conservation along the way. But through it all, Wilson has remained an ant guy at heart, even receiving his second Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for his book, "The Ants." (His first Pulitzer was for On Human Nature in 1978).

In that book (co-authored with Bert Hlldobler), Wilson estimated that the biomass (accumulated weight) of all of the worlds ants would match that of the planets human population. In the tropics, ant biomass can account for 15 to 25 percentof the total biomass of all terrestrial animals taken together, from the smallest mite to the largest predatory cat.

Ants are any of a family (Formicidae) of colonial hymenopterous insects with a complex social organization and various castes performing special duties(Photo: Submitted)

The Ohioline OSU Extension Factsheet Ants In and Around the Home offers a brief discussion of 13 of the most commonly encountered species in Ohio (and throughout much of the Northeast). Some of their common names are anatomically descriptive, like the little black, larger yellow and small honey ants.

Other names suggest a preferred habitat like the cornfield, lawn and pavement ants, or a notable behavior like the carpenter, thief, acrobat, Alleghany mound, odorous house, pharaoh and crazy ants. The Factsheet (Google Ohioline ants) provides concise descriptions of each of these species after providing a few tips on how to distinguish an ant from a termite.

Even without a hand lens, ants clearly appear to have a constricted waist between their thorax (middle part) and abdomen. Termites have no such narrowing between thorax and abdomen. Also, ants antennae are clearly elbowed while termite antennae are straight.

At certain times of the year, ants and termites both produce flying reproductive (males and females). The front wings of ants are notably larger than the back ones, while in termites theyre the same size and shape.

Id add that in most termites, the nonreproductive castes are soft-bodied and pale in color while ants typically have a hard, pigmented exoskeleton. Though not readily visible, all the workers and soldiers in an ant colony are female while both castes are a 50:50 mix of genders in a termite colony.

While a lot of the species that cause us headaches by invading our homes and businesses are omnivores feeding on a wide array of edibles, most have a preferred food type plant matter, sugars, fungi, grease, meat, seeds.

That last one involving seeds has an interesting spin. Many species of plants around the world have come to depend on ants for dispersing their seeds, a phenomenon known as myrmecochory. Such plants generally attach a fleshy structure (an elaiosome) rich in lipids and proteins to their seeds, which attracts ants. Workers carry the seeds back to the colony where the elaiosomes are fed to their larvae and the seed is discarded.

A quite different form of mutualism (both parties benefiting) is seen in the relationship many species of ants have developed with aphids and other plant sap-feeding insects. These insects secrete a sugary waste product as they feed, delicately referred to as honeydew.

The way it commonly works is that an aphid gives up a drop of the liquid when an ant strokes its back with its antennae. In return for this energy resource, ants protect their herd from predators, often carrying the aphids into their colony at night and bringing them out to fresh feeding sites the next day.

Ohio has three species of fire ants, small but highly aggressive, reddish-brown ants of open areas that deliver a potent sting when disturbed. But we do not have the problematic red imported fire ant (originally from South America) that has caused so much trouble in the Southeast.

And we also dont have another problematic invasive, the Argentine ant, which has formed super-colonies eliminating native ant species throughout the world in areas with a warm, dry climate. The aptly named Californian large colony extends 560 miles along the California coast.

But thats peanuts compared to an Argentine ant mega-colony in Europe reported to wrap some 3,700 miles around the Mediterranean.

Ken Baker is a retired professor of biology and environmental studies. If you have a natural history topic you would like Dr. Baker to consider for an upcoming column, please email your idea to fre-newsdesk@gannett.com.

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