Thursday 11 August 2016

myrmidons or pyric victory

We are living through the biggest war in the history of the natural world, as Kottke informs, had have been for a few of our generations and countless of the belligerents’ and we’d probably pay more attention to epic and global struggle happening underfoot and regard it as more than a nuisance if we did have our own battles to contend with.
The last years of 1800s a solitary stow-away from the marshlands of Argentina arrived in the port New Orleans, and this introduction of an invasive species resulted in the creation of a super-colony that has since spread all over the world, competing with native ants for territory and resources. As the battlefield has expanded and fronts and lines have grown together, the invading Linepithema humile have encountered their own diaspora, and strangely still recognises and treats them as kindred even when they have been separated by continents for over a century. These peaceful reunions, however, may end once the armies have vanquished all other competition.