Quechuan tradition requires that you offer your first mouthful of food to Pacha Mama, to Mother Earth. Tradition doesn’t say who or how it’s received, but I’m sure that the ants are her handmaidens.They come in a selection of sizes and a compilations of temperaments. From the glossy black leaf-cutters that forage on vegetation, to a tiny rusty brown omnivores that have successfully gained entry to a sealed bag containing a salami. Maybe it’s the chilli in the sausage that gives their bites so much fire, so much success in defending their prize. A pyrrhic victory, as they and the meat both ended as landfill. The Navigator is feeling victimised: the mosquitoes inject through clothes and have raised itching red lumps, a bee attack follows and now it’s the turn of the Fire Ants. How they can enter a double sealed ziplock bag, navigate round three-fourths of a screw top jar, is a question for our time. What is certain, they will inherit the earth when those who, erroneously believe they have priority on the food chain, have left.
