Just keep going, little guy

I saw this epic scene as I was walking home from work; my eye caught by an uneven shuffling near the corner of the wall next to my feet. Upon closer inspection, I saw that it was one of those things that you only really hear about in middle school biology classes: a tiny black ant of the standard Wisconsin variety, tugging the hulking carcass of a massive bumblebee. Or was it a carcass? With some sense of anthropomorphizing morbidity, I noted that the bee’s legs were still kicking feebly, and one wing fluttered as the ant stubbornly dragged his victim along. Although I thought the motion could have just been attributed to the bumping and dragging over the tiny pebbles, the ant stopped as my shadow loomed over him and started to fumble for my camera. The bee kicked twice, twitched, and then was still again, confirming that the huge insect was still (somewhat) alive.

I wondered what had happened that this duet was able to come to pass. Probably, the bee had more than likely stung someone or something, and being only a bumblebee with one sting in its life, was dying when the ant came across it in the dust. I suspect that this particular ant was definitely going to move up in the world. Top Drone, I hope.

The ant, sensing that the paparazzi had come to witness his superhuman strength, turned from his parallel course with me and began to determinedly carry the bee up the wall to his right. It was quite amazing to watch – the ant never faltered or changed speed at all as he rotated, backwards, 90 degrees, and I found myself wishing that my camera’s puny 3x optical zoom was closer to 30x. I can only imagine how on earth he was able to move so fast, backwards, vertically, while carrying a victim four or five times his size. He was moving so fast that my little point and shoot (definitely lacking the ability to capture motion in low-light situations) couldn’t even create an image without blur. I was glad to get the plant in the picture though, to showcase which way is upwards (would I lie to you?)

Let’s all be very glad that ants are tiny creatures. We would be in a lot of trouble if they were closer to our size. More specifically, we would all be dead.