Many naturalists and animal hunters in Africa have experienced the strange phenomenon when herds of elephants flee away from ants, known as Army or Legionnaire Ants. Forget lions, tigers, and bears! When it comes to the art of attacking, it's Army Ants that will make you break into a cold sweat. Armoured tough, with machete jaws, these masterful fighters hack and dice prey vastly larger than themselves by acting in numbers beyond easy comprehension. Imagine hordes of spear-wielding humans of the Ice Age at a dinosaur's feet. That's the scale of Army Ant operations, when they're attacking any animal, small or big, which crosses their paths. That is why Africa's elephants are not afraid of any animal in their natural environment, except for Army Ants, which can overwhelm them, if they cannot get out of the path of the marauders.

It all starts with a very silent murmur in the area, as millions of Army Ants march in migration in the forests and their billions of feet drum a slow deadly music for all animals (including humans) to get away from their path. A three-lane highway of Army Ants can stretch for as far as 150 yards.

During its 10-hour workday, an Army Ant colony flows across the forest floor catching  thousands of insects and large wounded animals, which cannot run away to escape. Among humans, the individuals who are at highest risk are very elderly people and very young children. The only saving factor is that the broad front of this army of ants seldom exceeds 20 meters or 65 feet and if you are out of this width, you can be safe and it often takes four hours before these long processions pass any point in its path. In modern days, some African tribes have found out that if you soak the leading columns with kerosene/ petrol and set fire to them, it diverts the main array.

It is common for these Army Ants to reduce a tethered cow to polished bone in several weeks. A few cases of human deaths have also been reported. The Siafu Army Ants on Mount Meru in Tanzania were implicated in the death of a missing tourist a few years ago.

Many missionary settlements in the African continent escaped destruction solely due to the fact that the width attacking the band of ants was less than 20 meters and the would-be victims could run/stay away.

These incredibly dangerous insects can grow from 8 mm to 12 mm in length! Most of them are light brown, but some can be reddish. They use formic acid to inject into the bodies of their victims, wrecking the basic circulatory system of all attacked animals.

It is also considered that Army Ants are some of the most efficient animals, or insects, especially  in the tropics. They form a giant group made up of millions of soldier ants. They then march killing and devouring anything in their path. If they come to a large animal, like an entangled cow, the soldiers will gradually start to cover it and when it is totally covered, they will cut the animal into small pieces without touching the internal organs, so it gets eaten alive. After the animal has been cut up into tiny pieces, the worker ants follow a chemical trail to the food and carry it back to the nest. These ants can carry up to 20 times their body weight and rest while consuming their great feast.

The surprising part is that both the Old World and the New World have their own different varieties of these ants. Unlike the Army Ants of the New World, Old World Army Ants have a functional sting, but rarely use it; this is more than compensated for by their razor-sharp claws. One of the best known Army Ants is the Burchell's Army Ant, found in Central and South America. These species consume so much of the available prey in a given area that they need to be constantly on the move to find more food.

Recently, the Australian state of Queensland found that it has been invaded by a type of Army Ant, probably brought by cargo ships, and the Queensland Department of Primary Industry says that it'll cost more than $100 million, over the next 5 years, to exterminate these ants.

Richard  Hackensacker, Maharaja  Features