Ant Go Boom

Last night I dreamed of being stuck in a sewer with rats. The water level was very high, and the rats were very good swimmers. I also dreamed of finding rats in a basement that had been temporarily (until I moved a wooden board, oops) sealed off. I got a good luck at a very light colored rat with glowing eyes, and he got a real good look at me, too.

Not one of the most pleasant dreams, partly because at the time it felt very real. Some dreams are like good summer entertainment, you know? You can just go along with it without getting too involved. This was one of those dreams where everything is vivid, not just visually, but by touch as well. I woke up abruptly, and not wanting to slip back into Ratland, I forced myself up. My body wasn't ready for that. Getting myself out of bed was like . . . imagine being an orange trying to peel yourself out of the rind. It was like that.

Now then, some time ago I mentioned some time ago about exploding ants, yes? I erred -- they're not from Madagascar, they're from Malaysia (although Madagascar does have the "Dracula Ant," check that out here). I sifted through a massive amount of search engine pages (I would say "googled," but apparently Google doesn't like their name being used as a verb, even if it is a huge amount of free advertising), I couldn't find a site that really gave me all the info I wanted. But here's one that gives a touch of explanation (you'll have to pay $20 to get the whole article) and there's apparently a cool book that'll tell you about this and other weird animal stuff -- the name of the book is (surprise!) Exploding Ants. The gist is this: some of these ants have a couple of glands that release some chemicals. When these chemicals mix, they will cause these ants (or at least their heads, apparently) to explode, spraying out this nasty chorosive chemical stuff. So when the colony gets invaded, most of the colony will run away, but a few of these guys will wait for the enemy. The enemy arrives, these ants explode, taking out them and a bunch of the enemy as well. Yee.