It’s Andy here today. Ann is in OurLittleCorner trying to get unstressed by baking.
I just read an article about the environmental and nutritional advantages of insect-based pet treats. The insects being turned into kibble and treats include such delightful morsels as American cockroaches, flesh flies (adults and larvae), black soldier fly larvae, crickets, and meal worms. The idea of serving up maggots and cockroaches to our dog Wynn was tough to swallow (so to speak) but I thought it might be a good alternative to the meat-based treats we are using— as long as these insects were unrecognizable by the time they hit the dog dish.
But then I discovered via Wikipedia that the harvester ant was also a protein source used in pet treats. That complicated things. Even with their high protein value and being environmental correct, I couldn’t imagine feeding these amazing little guys to Wynn. It turns out that I have a personal connection to these amazing ants.
My personal connection goes back to when I was a docent at the 500-acre Bouverie Preserve in Glen Ellen, leading groups of fourth and fifth graders on nature hikes. Of the wildlife we would see on our hikes, the harvester ant was one of my favorites. The entrances to their nests, with their tell-tale circle of discarded seed hulls, were often located on the paths in the Preserve. My young hikers always got a kick out of watching these enterprising ants carrying seeds to their nests (to feed to the queen and her brood of larvae somewhere down below) and bringing up the spent seed hulls to deposit outside of the entrance. Learning that the worker ants we were watching were all female always impressed the kids (I would discreetly omit the fact that the few males in a colony live only long enough to mate with the queen).
Since then I have learned that these denizens of the earth do much more than meets the eye; they create truly amazing subterranean architectural masterpieces. Sciencenews posted a piece about Florida State University professor emeritus Walter Tschinkel who discovered a way to “see” the complex design of these ant nests. He would pour molten metal or plaster into the underground nests and meticulously dig up the hardened casts to reveal their multilevel shapes which he described as “cookie-shaped chambers that dangle more chambers below on spiraling tendrils of tunnels.”
In his book Ant Architecture Tschinkel provides details of why the harvester ant nest is such an amazing accomplishment:
.. colonies of the Florida harvester ant with 7 thousand worker ants that together weigh less than an ounce move more than 16 lb of soil to create a nest with a volume of more than 2 gallons. By the time the ants have completed their excavation, the sum of the upward trips of sand-carrying ants is more than 400 miles, approximately the distance from New York to Cleveland.
And these nests can go down to a depth of 16 feet, which is impressive for these 1/3″ long ants. Our son, Travis, helped us put this 16 foot achievement in perspective by asking ChatGPT to compare 16′ to the depth an average height person would have to dig to be comparable. The answer came out to be a whopping 3,312 feet, which is about twice the distance to the top of One World Trade Center. See ChatGPT’s response below.
By now you should understand why I would balk at the thought of purchasing dog food that contains harvester ants. Come to think of it, I would imagine that some of the other insects being ground into treats may have their own stories. For example, I’ve read that cockroaches are capable of surviving without food for a month, without water for a week, and even without their heads for a week. And mealworms can break down polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) into useful organic material. I could go on, but the bottom line is that I am highly unlikely to jump on the insect-based-pet-food band wagon.
So, if you happen to be shopping for dog treats without meat and are tempted to buy a brand that boasts about its “nutritious and environmentally correct” insect-based ingredients, think about those little harvester ants and One World Trade Center. Perhaps then you will decide to take a look in the vegan pet food section.
Beja skips the processing part and just goes with the insect in its natural state (or as natural as a towel-swatted fly can be).
Deja dining on a fly reminds me that I see Wynn snap at flies occasionally. It had never occurred to me that she could be foraging rather then just being annoyed. Say high to Deja for me.