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With their various
communication methods, ants may be compared to men who can
speak several foreign languages. They are able to communicate
with 3-4 different languages among themselves and they are
able to pursue their lives in the least problematic manner.
They are able to subsist their colonies with populations of
hundreds
 of thousands or sometimes millions, and survive all
their lives without causing any confusion.
Yet this communication system
we have been describing so far is just one of the miraculous
features of the animal world. When we analyse both people and
also all other living beings (From single-celled to
multi-celled) we can discover characteristics that are
different from each other, with each being a separate and
individual miracle with its place in an ecological order.
For an eye that can notice all
these miracles that are created around it, and a heart that
can feel, it will be sufficient to look at the extraordinary
communication system of the ant of millimetric dimensions to
appreciate the infinite power, knowledge and wisdom of Allah
Who is the sole Owner and Sovereign of all living things. In
the Qur'an, Allah refers to these people who do not have this
capability and who may not appreciate His might:
(Have they
not travelled about the earth and do they not have hearts to
understand with or ears to hear with? It is not their eyes
which are blind but the hearts in their breasts which are
blind) (Surat al-Hajj:46)
Communication in society
 The Qur'an supplies an interesting piece of information when
talking about Prophet Sulayman's armies and mentions that
there is an advanced "communications system" among the ants.
The verse is as follows:
(Then, when they reached the valley of the ants, an ant
said,'Ants! Enter your dwellings so that Sulayman and his
troops do not crush you unwittingly.) (Surat an-Naml: 18)
The scientific research made on ants in this century has shown
that there is an incredible communications network among these
creatures. In an article published in the National Geographic
magazine, this point is explained:
Huge and tiny, an ant carries in her head multiple sensory
organs to pick up chemical and visual signals vital to
colonies that may contain a million or more workers, all of
which are female. The brain contains half a million nerve
cells; eyes are compound; antennae act as nose and fingertips.
Projections below the mouth sense taste; hairs respond to
touch.
Even if we do not notice it, the ants have quite a different
method of communication in virtue of their sensitive sensing
organs. They employ these sense organs at every moment of
their lives, from finding their prey to following each other,
from building their nests to fighting. They have a
communication system which astonishes us, as human beings with
intellect, with their 500,000 nerve cells squeezed into their
bodies of 2 or 3 millimetres. What we should keep in mind here
is that the half a million nerve cells and the complex
communication system mentioned above belongs to an ant which
in bulk is almost one millionth of a human being.
In research done on social creatures like ants, bees and
termites, who live in colonies, the responses of these animals
in the communication process are listed under several main
categories: Alarm, recruitment, grooming, exchange of oral and
anal liquid, group effect, recognition, caste determination…
The ants, who constitute an orderly social structure with
these various responses, lead a life based on mutual news
exchange and they have no difficulty in achieving this
correspondence. We could say that ants, with their impressive
communication system, are hundred percent successful on
subjects that human beings sometimes cannot resolve nor agree
upon by talking (e.g. meeting, sharing, cleaning, defence,
etc.).
The Role of Touch in Chemical Communications
The communications by ants by touching each other with their
antennae in maintaining
 intra-colony organization proves that
there is in use an "antennal language" in its fullest sense.
The antenna signals created by touching in ants are used for
various purposes like commencement of dinner, invitations and
social meetings where nestmates get to know each other. For
instance, in one type of worker ant species living in Africa,
workers first touch by the antennae when they meet each other.
Here, "antenna shaking" means just a salute and an invitation
to the nest.
This invitation behaviour is even more striking in certain ant
species (Hypoponera) When a pair of workers meet face
to face, the inviting ant tilts its head sideways 90 degrees
and strikes the upper and lower surfaces of the nestmate's
head with its antennae. Often the solicited ant responds with
similar antennation.
 When the ants touch the bodies of their nestmates, the goal is
not to give them information but to receive information by
detecting the chemicals they secrete. One ant beats the
nestmate's body very lightly and rapidly with its antennae.
When it gets close to its nestmate, its goal here is to bring
the chemical signals as close as possible to the other. As a
result, it will be able to detect and follow the odor trail
its friend has just laid and reach the food source.
The most striking example that may be set forth for tactile
communication is the exchange of liquid food from the crop of
one ant to the alimentary tract of another. In an interesting
test made on this subject, various parts of the bodies of
worker ants of the Myrmica and Formica species
were stimulated by human hair
 and were thus successfully
induced to regugitate. The most susceptible ant was the one
that had just finished a meal and was looking for a nestmate
with whom to share its crop content. Researchers noted that
certain insects and parasites were aware of such tactics and
they were having themselves fed by practising this method.
What the insect had to do to attract the ant's attention was
just to touch the ant's body slightly with its antenna and its
front leg. Then the touched ant would share its meal, even if
the creature in contact with it is of a different type.
The ability of an ant to understand what the other one wants
by a short antenna contact shows that the ants may, in a
sense, "speak" among themselves. How this "antennal language"
used among ants is learned by all ants is another subject to
think about. Are they undergoing training on this subject? To
talk about the existence of such training, we must also talk
about the existence of a superior Almighty Who provides it.
Since it cannot be the ants who can provide such a training,
this Almighty is Allah Who, by way of inspiration, teaches all
ants a language with which to communicate.
The sharing behaviour practised among ants is a specimen of
self-sacrifice that cannot be explained by the theory of
evolution. Some evolutionists who see the adage "Big fish
swallow small fish" as the key to life on earth are forced to
withdraw such words when confronted with such self-sacrifice
as is displayed by ants. In an ant colony, instead of the "big
ant" developing by eating the "small ant", it rather attempts
to feed the "small ant" and make it grow. All ants are ready
to accept the food - that is, the "provision" - given to them
and definitely make sure to share the excess with other
members of the colony.
As a result, what all these examples show us is that the ants
are a society of living beings who have submitted to the will
of the Creator and who act under His inspiration. Therefore,
it would not be right to regard them as organisms which are
totally unconscious, because they do have a consciousness
which reflects the will of their Creator. Indeed, Allah draws
attention in the Qur'an to this interesting fact and notifies
us that all living things are, in fact, a community among
themselves, that is, they live under a Divine order and in
accordance with inspiration.
(There is not an animal that lives on the earth, nor a being
that flies on its wings, but forms communities like you. We
have not omitted anything from the Book, and they will be
gathered to their Lord.) (Surat al-An'am: 38)
Reference : "THE MIRACLE IN THE ANT" by
Harun Yahya. |
