A Very Personal Book Report 2 “I sleep-talked in the Ant Language”

Book Title: I don't think it's translated into English yet
                     （アリ語で寝言を言いました in Japanese）
Author: Takahiro Murakami
Published: 2020

Introduction

        This book is about ants. The author, Dr. Takahiro Murakami, is one of the well-known specialists in ant research. He specializes in fungus-growing ants. While the title of this book implies that there is an ant language and that Dr. Murakami might be able to use it, he does not discuss it very much in this book. He admits and apologizes, that he couldn’t. Although Dr. Murakami has found that certain ants communicate with the sounds they make, his research and final report is not finished or published yet. Therefore he couldn’t tell everything in detail.
        Still, it is very interesting to read. You get to know how long ago ants started to live on Earth, how they flourished into different types, how cute and interesting some ants' families are, how complicated their social systems are, as well as the research methods and the difficulties he experienced. Dr. Murakami says that insects, especially ants, are a treasure box full of evolution and adaptation. When we humans think of a sustainable society, hints are everywhere in the ant society. What we should learn from ants is not only about diligence.

Interesting Facts

        Dr. Murakami introduces several kinds of interesting ant families. 

        Cephalotes is Nabebuta-Ari in Japanese, which means “lid of a pan ant”. Their head is rather big and flat. They can even glide from above by using their physical characteristics. One or a few of the worker ants of Cephalotes have a manhole-like part on their heads. Their duty is to be the door at the entrance of their colony. And that is their only job throughout their lives. When a fellow ant arrives, she opens the door by moving her own head, to let it in, and closes it when it enters. It’s ‘she’, because all working ants are female. They are found in trees, underground, sometimes in a leaf, in the North and South Americas.

        The Leafcutter ant, famous for cutting leaves and carrying them in a long, single file, is experiencing a division of labor. They are born into this one job and do the same job, throughout their lives. Dr. Murakami has already found more than 30 different types of jobs. While the queen ant may live for 20 years, laying eggs every day (I feel very sorry!), the worker ants work without eating or drinking and hardly getting any sleep, and die within three months.

        Research conducted on a very average ant family called Myrmica kotokui or Shiwakushike Ari proved that 20% of the whole worker ants population do not work much, while 20% of them work very hard and 60% work as expected. Further research with 30 individuals from the hard-working group and 30 individuals from the lazy group showed the same results. 20% of the whole population stops working. There are reasons for some ants to hang around while others work hard. When some sudden situation arises, the surplus labor force will be lost. The 20% of the ants that haven't worked serve as a reserve army. Also, needless to say, as ants have evolved in so many different directions and have so many different species that it is impossible to adapt this result to all ant species. For example, in the case of the aforementioned Leafcutter ants, Dr. Murakami’s research result shows that 100% of its worker ants work hard.

Conclusion

        When you close the book, the ants do not go away from your head so soon. I think the ants' world is too interesting to instantly forget about. This book is only the starting point for you to get acquainted with different kinds of ants. I first would like to find out what type of ants live in my back garden. They never look busy, so they might be the 20%, the reserve army. I may be one of the reserve army, too, considering how free and not hard-working I am at the moment. But people like me are also needed in our society, for sure!