F
Ants don't really have monarchy or royal bloodlines. All of the workers of a colony are more closely related to the queens offspring (their sisters and future queens) than they would be to their own children if they mated and laid eggs.
If they could have a male offspring that would not be true. But, they are kind of aligned with the goal of raising the queen's eggs.
And the queen isn't in charge at all.
Chimps also have "wars" but it's more like gang violence than a human war.
Only ants do war like people.
Having read several books by people who became fascinated by ants I can say that watching ants will *do things to you* --I think it's the combination of the their unexpected complexity then the one two punch of these creatures being totally alien while at the same time some of the only creatures that do things that people do:
* agriculture
* public works
* networking
* traffic
* war
etc.
Possibly spotted right here in NYC!
It was birdy this morning on the banks of the Hudson River in lower Manhattan. I’d seen nine warbler species, Baltimore Orioles, a brilliant Scarlet Tanager…
10,000 Birds (www.10000birds.com)
"Carbonated Swamp Warbler" sounds like something you drink when you visit New Orleans and then you don't remember the rest of the trip.
But, it's actually one of a handful of birds that Audubon painted but no one can seem to find it anymore.
A cryptid!
I'd think only the insects might be worthy.
Is the cicada from a 32x32 grid or 16x16?
I'm working on the ant. Maybe I should have started with something easier... 
Since he was writing about 50s army guys I just assumed that's how they were... kind of ... you know... wooden.
I'm not the only one who thinks about this!
Design Challenge: In the tiny kitchen I must have TWO objects on the floor that I trip over: 1. Waste Basket (Because it's an apartment it's like those at the office, small and simple a bucket.) 2. step stool (because i am short) It seems to me that this could be somehow made into one object. A garbage can I could stand on. Yes I could turn it over but I think you can see how that is not ideal. Any designers out there looking for their big break?
Sauropods.win (sauropods.win)
Seems convenient?
Yeah... but... if they try to do romance it can be pretty amusing.
IDK there is something more personal about it being one person who wrote all the nonsense in things like these and it's a little window into their mind. Such as it is.
If the insects were gone I would assume it was The Rapture.
So this is why I rejoice when I see the ants again. When the bees return, and even maybe the mosquitos (some of them) and the shy beetles, and the gnats to tiny too name.
Consider the slow creeping horror of a spring with no insects. The uncanny unspecified silence of the night. The emptiness and around you the whole ecosystem would be failing from the bottom up... without making a single sound.
You might make it to fall, maybe through the first winter but beyond that? When the soil fails? When most of the birds and river fish are gone?
It would be the end, but how many would notice it had begun?
I hate how, because of LLMs, reading such things will almost never be as amusing as it once was.
It's now too easy to just churn out nonsense and you don't even need to read it before you print it. No one needs to read it. It's just a book as a symbolic object.
The Fenway Park Lemur
(Also known as The People From Boston Can't Recognize a Raccoon)
is the funniest Cryptid.
Though maybe it could have been a cat. Pica has a very long tail and could make a good lemur if you added rings to her tail and made it fatter. She even jumps like one.
But then she'd have little hands...
NO. No thank you.
cromagnANTS
Description: a person holds a peeled clementine showing it to a gray tabby cat with a round face.
The cat sniffs the air and makes a face like "yuck".
The person encourages the cat to sniff again. The cat makes the same face and walks away.
