The Miracle In The Ant (Book)

Preface

In this book we are going to tell you about a creature that you know quite well, that you meet everywhere without actually giving it much attention, that is highly skillful, highly social and highly intelligent - "The Ant". Our aim is to review the lives full of miracles of these minute creatures that are never of any significance in our daily lives.

Technology, collective work, military strategy, advanced communications network, an astute and rational hierarchy, discipline, perfect city planning… These are fields where human beings may not always be successful enough, but where the ants always are. When you look at these creatures, which are fully armed to defeat tough rivals and to endure the difficult conditions of nature, you may think that all of them are identical. However, each species of the ant genus – and there are thousands of them – has, in fact, different characteristics. We believe that these creatures that have the highest population in the world may open up new horizons for us within the framework of the characteristics referred to above. This book will reveal to us the special and marvelous world of ants. We shall witness the things these ant communities succeed with their tiny bodies and witness that there is absolutely no difference between their fossils, the oldest of which is about 80 million years old, and their counterparts living today, that run to approximately 8800 species.

As we explore the special world of ants, this perfect system will earn our admiration and increase the need for thinking and investigating. At the same time, we shall see the mistakes in the theory of evolution and witness Allah's immaculate creation, which is a tremendously important work. In the Qur'an, the type of person who thinks about nature and thus recognizes the omnipotence of Allah is praised as a model for those who believe. The verses below explain this point fully:

In the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the alternation of night and day, there are indeed signs for men of understanding: men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the wonders of creation in the heavens and the earth, (saying): "Our Lord! You have not created all this in vain! Glory be to You! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire."(Surat Al'Imran:190-191)

We hope that this book causes its readers to think more deeply on and to feel admiration for the superior power and unequaled art of creation of Allah, Who has made all things.


Introduction

The living beings that have the densest population in the world are the ants. For every seven hundred million ants that come into this world there are only 40 new-born human beings. There is a lot of other amazing information to learn about these creatures.

The ants, one of the most "social" groups among the insect genus, live as societies called "colonies", which are extremely "well organized". Their organization is of such an advanced order that it may be said that in this respect they have a civilization similar to that of humans.

The ants care for their babies, protect their colonies and fight as they produce and store their food. There are even colonies that do "tailoring", that deal in "agriculture" or "animal husbandry". These animals, with their very strong communication network, are so superior as not to be compared to any other organism, with respect to social organization and specialization.

In our day, researchers with superior intelligence and education are working day and night in think tanks formed to formulate successful social organizations and to find lasting solutions to social and economic problems. Ideologues have been producing social models for centuries. Yet when we look at the world in general, no ideal socio-economic social order has so far been reached, in spite of all these intensive efforts. Since the concept of order in human societies has always been based on competition and individual interests, a perfect social order has never been possible. The ants on the other hand, have perpetuated the social system that is ideal for them for millions of years right down to the present day.

Then how can these minute creatures form such an order? This is a question for which an answer must certainly be sought.

Evolutionists, when trying to answer this question, claim that ants evolved 80 million years ago from "Tiphiidae", which is an archaic genus of wasps, and that they started socializing 40 million years ago – suddenly, "at their own discretion" - and that they constitute the highest level of the evolution of insects. However, they do not in any way explain the causes and the process of development of this socialization. The basic mechanism of evolution requires living beings to fight with each other to the end, for their survival. Therefore, each genus and every individual within that genus can think of only itself and its own offspring (Why and how it started thinking of its offspring is another dead end for Evolution, but we are skipping this point for now). It is, of course, unanswered how this type of a "law of evolution" can form a social system with sacrifice right at its core

The questions to be answered are not limited to these. Could these creatures whose nerve cells for one million of them only weigh 20 grams, have adopted the resolution to socialize in groups "just like that"? Or could they have got together to set the rules for this socializing after adopting such a resolution? Even if we accept that they could, would all of them obey this new system without exception? Have they formed an advanced social order by founding colonies with millions of members after overcoming all these seeming impossibilities?

Then how did a "caste system" emerge out of this struggle? First, this question has to be answered: How has the difference between the queen and the worker developed? Evolutionists at this point will say that a group among the workers abandoned working and developed a physiology different from the worker ants by going through genetic variations over a long period of time. However, we are then faced with the question of how the said "would be queens" were nourished throughout this transformation period. The queen ants do not look for food. They are fed with food brought by the workers. Some workers may have seen themselves as "queens", so how and why have other workers accepted this hierarchy? Furthermore, why have they consented to feed this queen? The "struggle for life" that they are in, according to "evolution", requires that they only think of themselves.

Ant fossil dating back 80 million years. This fossil clearly shows us that ants have not at all changed over 80 millions years

All insects spend most of their time in looking for food. They find and they eat food, then they get hungry again and go off to find more food. They also run from danger. When we accept evolution, we also have to accept that the ants too lived "individually" once upon a time, but that one day, millions of years ago, they decided to become socialized. The question then arises as to how they "decided" "to form" this social order without any common communication between themselves, because, according to evolution, communication is a consequence of socializing. Furthermore, the question of how they have developed the genetic mutation required for this socialization has no scientific explanation whatsoever.

All these arguments take us to a single point: To claim that the ants started "socializing" one day millions of years ago is to break all the basic rules of logic. The only possible explanation is as follows: The social order, of which we shall see the details in the following chapters, was created along with the ants; and this system has not varied since the first ant colony on earth, until today.

When mentioning the bees who have a social order similar to that of the ants, Allah states in the Qur'an that this social order has been "revealed" to them:

And your Lord revealed to the bee: "Build dwellings in the mountains and the trees and also in the structures which men erect. Then eat from every kind of fruit and travel the paths of your Lord, which have been made easy for you to follow." From inside them comes a drink of varying colours, containing healing for mankind. There is certainly a sign in that for people who reflect. (Surat an-Nahl: 68-69)

The verse conveys the message that everything the honey bees do is governed by a "revelation" Allah has given to them. Accordingly, all the "homes", that is, hives - and therefore the entire social order in these hives - and all the work they perform to make honey, are made possible by an inspiration Allah has given them.

When we look at ants, we see that things are no different for them either. Allah has inspired in them a social order also and they abide by it absolutely. This is the reason why each group of ant performs the duty assigned to it perfectly with absolute self-surrender and does not strive for more.

And this is the law of nature. There is no random and coincidental "fight for survival" in nature as purported by evolution and there has never been one. On the contrary, all living creatures eat the "food" specified for them and perform duties Allah assigned to them. Because "there is no living being He (Allah) does not hold by the forelock and inspect." (Surah Hud: 56) and "He (Allah) is the one who gives food." (Surat adh-Dhariyat: 58)



Chapter 1

Social Life

We mentioned that ants live in colonies and that a perfect division of labour exists amongst them. When we take a closer look at their systems, we shall also see that they have a pretty interesting social structure. It will also come to our attention that they are capable of sacrifice at a much higher level than humans are. One of the most interesting points is that – compared to humans – they do not know the concepts such as the rich-poor discrimination and the fight for power that are observed in our societies.

Many scientists, who for years have been doing extensive research on ants, have not been able to clarify the subject of their advanced social behaviour. Caryle P. Haskins, Ph.D., the president of the Carnegie Institute at Washington has this to say:

After 60 years of observation and study, I still marvel at how sophisticated the ants' social behavior is. …The ants thus make a beautiful model for our use in studying the roots of animal behavior.1

Some colonies of ants are so extensive with respect to population and living area, that it is impossible to explain how they can form a perfect order over such a vast area. Therefore, it is not easy not to concur with Dr. Haskins.

As an example of these large colonies we can give the species of ant, called Formica Yessensis that lives on the Ishikari coast of Hokkaido. This ant colony lives in 45,000 interconnected nests over an area of 2.7 square kilometres. The colony, which is composed of approximately 1,080,000 queens and 306,000,000 workers, has been named the "Super colony" by the researchers.2 It has been discovered that all production tools and food are exchanged in an orderly fashion within the colony.

It is very hard to explain how the ants have maintained this order without any problems, considering the vast area they are living in. We must not forget that various security forces are needed for enforcing law and maintaining social order, even in a civilized country with a low population density. And there is an administrative staff leading and managing these units. Sometimes, it does not become possible to maintain the required order without problems despite all these intense efforts.

Yet in ant colonies there is no need felt for police, gendarmerie or guards. If we consider that actually the duty of the queens, whom we think of as the leaders of the colonies, is just to maintain the species, they do not have a leader or a governor. There is thus no hierarchy based on a chain of command amongst them. Then who is it that lays down this order and maintains its continuity?

In the later chapters of the book we shall find answers to this question and similar others in combination.


Ants, which are very small creatures, pursue their lives with perfect orderliness in spite of their size


CASTE SYSTEM
Each ant colony without exception complies strictly with the caste system. This caste system consists of three major parts within a colony.
Members of the first caste are the queen and the males who make reproduction possible. More than one queen may exist in a colony. The queen has assumed the task of reproducing and thus increasing the number of individuals making up the colony. Her body is larger than that of the other ants. The duty of the males on the other hand is just to fertilize the queen. In fact, nearly all of these die after the nuptial flight.

The members of the second caste are the soldiers. These take on duties like the setting up of the colony, finding a new living environment and hunting.

The third caste consists of worker ants. All of the workers are sterile females. They take care of the mother ant and her babies; they clean and feed them. In addition to all these, other jobs in the colony are also under the responsibility of the workers. They build new corridors and new galleries for their nests; they search for food and continually clean up the nest.

The worker and soldier ants also have sub-groups. These are named slaves, thieves, nurses, guards and foragers. Each group has a different task. While one group focuses completely on fighting the enemy or hunting, another group builds nests, and yet another one looks after maintenance.

Every individual in the ant colonies does his full share of the work. None of them worry about the position it is in nor the nature of the job it performs, but it plainly does what is required of it. What is important is the continuity of the colony.

When we think about how this system could have developed, we cannot avoid reaching the fact of creation.

Let us explain why: Where there is perfect order, logically we reach the conclusion that this has certainly been established by a planning mind. For instance, there is a disciplined order in the military; it is obvious that the officers in control of the army have established this order. It would certainly be an absurd idea to assume that all individuals in the army came together on their own and organized themselves and that later on they were grouped in different ranks and started acting in compliance with these ranks. Furthermore, the officers who have established this order have to keep on carrying out inspections of this order so that it may persist without any problems. Otherwise, an army left solely to the troops would soon be transformed into an unruly crowd, regardless of how well disciplined it might have been at the beginning.



Ants within the same colony who belong to different castes have different physical appearances as well. Each has a physical build appropriate for its job



The ants also have a discipline very similar to that of the military. Yet the critical aspect is that there is no "officer", that is any organizing administrator, in sight. The various caste systems within the ant colony carry out their duties in a faultless manner; although, yet there is no obvious "central power" which supervises them.
Then the only explanation is that the central will in question is an "invisible" one. The inspiration which is mentioned in the Qur'an with the statement "And your Lord revealed to the bee" (Surat Nahl: 68), is this invisible power.

This will has achieved such tremendous planning that people are in awe of it when they try to analyze it. Such awe and wonderment have been expressed from time to time in various forms by the researchers as well. Evolutionists, who claim that such a perfect system has developed as a result of coincidences, are not able to explain this sacrificial behaviour which is at the core of this system. An article written on this subject in the Journal of Bilim ve Teknik indicates this incapability once more:

The problem is why living beings help each other. According to Darwin's Theory, each living creature fights for his own survival and reproduces. Since helping others would relatively decrease the probability of survival of that living being, this behaviour had to be eliminated by evolution in the long run. Yet it has been observed that living beings may be ready to sacrifice.

A classical form of explaining the fact of sacrifice is that the colonies which are made up of individuals who are ready to sacrifice for the benefit of the group or the genus shall be more successful during evolution than those which are made up of egotistical individuals. However, the point, which is not explained in this theory, is how the societies which can sacrifice may maintain this characteristic. A single egotistical individual who may come up in such a society should be able to transfer its selfish characteristics to the later generations, since he is not going to sacrifice himself. Another vague point is that if evolution happens at the level of societies, what should the dimension of this society be? Should it be the family, species, genus or class? Even if there is an evolution simultaneously at more than one level, what will be the result when interests are in conflict3?

As we can see, it is not possible to explain the sense of sacrifice in living beings and the social systems based on this sense with the theory of evolution, that is, by assuming that living creatures have come into being by chance.



Can the Ants Be Doormen?
When we analyze the details of the system in the ant colonies, we feel the power of the invisible will, which establishes and governs this system, in a more concrete way. Now let us take a look at these details.
The connections to the outer world of the ant nests are usually via a small hole large enough for an ant to go through. Passing through these holes is by "permission". There are ants within the colony whose numbers are not very many with the duty of "serving as a doorman".

"The doormen" serve as living gates with the shapes of their heads fitting right in the nest entrance. Furthermore, the colour and design of their heads are the same as that of the tree barks in the close surrounding. The doorman sits for hours at the entrance hole and allows free passage only its nestmates.4

This means that the idea of keeping a doorman to guard the buildings has been put into practice, before men, by doorman ants, who cover the entrance with the strongest part of their bodies, who also camouflage themselves and who do not let in those who do not say the right "password".

It is quite obvious that that the head of the doorman ant that we mentioned above fits right into the hole, that its colour and patterns conform to the environment, and that it does not let in anybody that it does not know, cannot be up to its own will. There certainly is an owner of intellect who has designed the body of the ant in this form and who inspires the job it is doing. To say that the ant can figure out these duties on its own and serves as a doorman without running out of patience and without giving up, would certainly not be a sensible explanation.

Let us think: Why would an ant want to be a doorman? If it had a choice, why would it pick the job, which is the most cumbersome and that requires the most sacrifice? If it did have such a chance, it would certainly pick a job that would provide it with the most comfortable environment and the best service. The choice, in fact, has come about with the determination of Allah. And the doorman ant performs its duties in full obedience. Only the creator of the ants may have designed such a perfect colony life to show the striking side of His art and given particular duties to the ant colony which abides by this system.

According to the theory of evolution, however, the ants should be developing in every respect and they should be trying to get into a caste where they could live a lot more comfortably. However, the doorman ants make no effort in this direction and they perform their inspired jobs faultlessly throughout their entire lives.



Expert Ants

Ants are beings
that can only
live in groups.
They cannot
survive alone.



The organization, specialization in certain fields, and communications in the ant world is almost as successful as among human beings. This is true to such an extent that human beings are patterning their systems today on the harmonious system of the ants. The excerpt below illustrates this point:

Computer experts today are trying to reproduce in laboratories the collective behaviour forms of ants in robots. Instead of very advanced programmes, they are focusing on robots that cooperate devising between themselves on the basis of "simple" information elements. In these studies, the basic principle is the same. Instead of forming a highly advanced robot, the intention is to develop a herd of robots that are less "intelligent" but which will undertake the most "complex" tasks, just as the ants do in the ant colony… These robots will not be very advanced from the point of "intelligence" when taken one by one, but they will achieve the division of labour by collective action motivation. This will be possible because they will have the capacity to exchange the simplest information with each other. The life and cooperation in the ant colony has also influenced NASA… The organization is planning to send many "ant robots" for research on the planet Mars instead of a single advanced robot. Thus, even if some of them are destroyed, the surviving members of the team will be able to complete their tasks5.

Let us now take a look at an interesting example from the world of "expert ants".



How Does Living in a Group Affect Ants?
The most obvious example of cooperation among ants is in the behaviour of a worker ant species called Lasius emarginatus. The individuals of this species have interesting affiliations with each other. The activities of four worker ants belonging to the group that works with earth go on when they are separated from the big group. However, when there is a substance, like glass or stone in between which prevents them from seeing each other, their rate of work slows down.
Another example is that when the fire ants are separated from their groups by a thin barrier, they try to reach the other members of their colony by piercing this obstruction.

Many variations occur also in the behaviour of ants when the number of individuals in the group changes. When the number of ants in the nest increases, it is observed that the activity of each one of the individuals also proportionally increases. When the worker ants come together as a group, they get together, calm down and spend less energy. It has been determined that as the population increases in some ant species, there is a drop in the amount of oxygen spent.

What all these examples show us is that ants cannot survive on their own. These small creatures have been created with characteristics that allow them to live only in groups or even colonies. And this proves to us how out of touch with reality are the claims by the evolutionists with regard to the socializing process of ants. It is impossible for the ants to have been living alone when they were first created and to have socialized later on to form colonies. It would have been impossible for an ant facing such an environment to have survived. It would have had to reproduce, to build a nest for itself and its larvae, to feed both itself and its family, be a doorman, be a soldier and also a worker who took care of the larvae… We cannot claim that all these jobs requiring an extensive division of labour could have been performed once upon a time by a single ant or even a few ants. Furthermore, it is impossible to think that they worked hard towards socialization while performing these mundane tasks.

What is deduced from all this is the following: Ants are creatures who have been living under a social system and in groups since the day they were first created. This in turn is proof that ants have come into existence in one single moment with all their characteristics intact and, if we wish to phrase it better, that they have been "created".



A Model Headquarters
Let us expand a little the example of an army that we gave previously. Just think that you arrived at an army headquarters that is enormously large, but in which there is complete order. It looks as if you cannot go inside, because the security guards at the gates do not let in anybody they do not know. The building is protected with a security system that is strictly supervised.

In the picture above, we can see the underground city ants have built in the roots of a tree. In time, the roots of the tree have been damaged and the tree has fallen to reveal this secret city.

Let us just assume that you found a way of getting in. Various systematic and dynamic activities will catch your attention inside, for thousands of soldiers are performing their duties in a strictly orderly fashion. When you search for the secret of this order, you notice that the building has been designed in a form entirely suitable for the inhabitants to work in. There are special departments for each job and these departments are designed so that the soldiers can work in the easiest manner. For instance, the building has floors underground, but the department which requires the sun's energy is located where it may get sunlight at the widest possible angle. And the departments which have to be in constant touch with each other are constructed very close to each other so that access would be facilitated. The warehouses where the surplus materials are stored are designed as a separate department in one side of the building. The warehouses where such requirements are kept are comfortable, accessible locations and there is a wide space right at the centre of the building where everybody may gather.

The features of the headquarters are not limited to these. The building is heated uniformly in spite of its vastness. The temperature stays constant all day long thanks to an extremely advanced central heating system. Another reason for this is the building's extremely effective external insulation against all weather conditions.

If the question of how and by whom this type of headquarters was designed was asked, everybody would say that it is by superior technology and by a professional team work. Such a headquarters building can only be built by people who have a certain level of education, culture, intellect and logic.

However, this headquarters building is actually an ant's nest.

To accumulate the required information to build such type of a headquarters building would take quite a long part of human life. However, an ant coming out of the egg knows its duty at that moment and starts work without losing any time. This shows that ants possess this information before they are born. All this information has been inspired in the ants at the time of their creation by Allah, the Almighty Who created them.



Self Organization in Ants

In the first stage of nest building, members of the colony open a tiny hole, then expand into a labyrinth of chambers. In most of these sections, there are fungus gardens. These gardens fill the chambers, which are located near the surface. Larger, deeper pits hold decomposing plant detritus and waste. A few of these pits, oddly, contain more soil than organic matter, as if a soil cover is needed for especially noxious waste. Hot air rises from these refuse chambers. Cool, oxygen-rich air is drawn into the nest. Openings directly above the nest are used only for excavation and ventilation. Cavernous perimeter tunnels form a beltway some 7.5 meters from the nest. The most important point here is that this metropolis has been constructed by ants who have not taken any architectural or agricultural courses what so ever .


There is no leader, planning, or programming in the world of ants. And the most important point is that there is no chain of command as we mentioned before. The most complex duties in this society are carried out without skipping a beat due to an immensely advanced self-organization. Consider the following example:

When food shortages occur in the colony, the worker ants are immediately transformed into "feeder" ants and they start feeding others with the food particles in their reserve stomachs, and when there is surplus food in the colony, they shed this identity and again become worker ants

The sacrifice displayed here truly is at an advanced level. While human beings have not succeeded in fighting hunger in the world, the ants have found a practical solution to this problem: to share everything, including their food. Yes, this is a real example of sacrifice. Giving without hesitation everything it owns including its food to the next ant, so that it may survive, is just one of the examples of sacrifice in nature which the theory of evolution cannot manage to explain.

There is no overpopulation problem for ants. While today, the metropolises of man are becoming hard to live in due to migration, lack of infrastructure, misallocation of resources and unemployment, ants can manage their underground cities, with a population of 50 million in a fantastically orderly fashion, without the feeling that anything is lacking. Each ant immediately adapts to changes occurring in its environment. For such a thing to occur, the ants must have certainly been programmed physically and psychologically.

For the emergence of such extremely well organized systems, there has to be a "master will" to give them the inspiration to do their work and to give them orders. Otherwise, great chaos would ensue rather than order. And this master will pertains to Allah, Who owns everything, Who is Almighty, Who directs all living beings and orders them by inspiration.

The fact that ants perpetually strive without any consideration of benefit, is proof that they are acting on the inspiration of a certain "supervisor". The verse below fully confirms that Allah is the master and supervisor of everything and that every living creature acts on His inspiration:

I have put my trust in Allah, my Lord and your Lord. There is no living being He does not hold by the forelock and inspect! My Lord is on a straight path. (Surah Hud: 56)


Chapter 2

Communication In Society

The Qur'an supplies an interesting piece of information when talking about Prophet Sulayman's armies and mentions that there is an advanced "communications system" among the ants. The verse is as follows:

Then, when they reached the valley of the ants, an ant said,'Ants! Enter your dwellings so that Sulayman and his troops do not crush you unwittingly.' (Surat an-Naml: 18)

The scientific research made on ants in this century has shown that there is an incredible communications network among these creatures. In an article published in the National Geographic magazine, this point is explained:

Huge and tiny, an ant carries in her head multiple sensory organs to pick up chemical and visual signals vital to colonies that may contain a million or more workers, all of which are female. The brain contains half a million nerve cells; eyes are compound; antennae act as nose and fingertips. Projections below the mouth sense taste; hairs respond to touch.7

Even if we do not notice it, the ants have quite a different method of communication in virtue of their sensitive sensing organs. They employ these sense organs at every moment of their lives, from finding their prey to following each other, from building their nests to fighting. They have a communication system which astonishes us, as human beings with intellect, with their 500,000 nerve cells squeezed into their bodies of 2 or 3 millimetres. What we should keep in mind here is that the half a million nerve cells and the complex communication system mentioned above belongs to an ant which in bulk is almost one millionth of a human being.

In research done on social creatures like ants, bees and termites, who live in colonies, the responses of these animals in the communication process are listed under several main categories: Alarm, recruitment, grooming, exchange of oral and anal liquid, group effect, recognition, caste determination…8

The ants, who constitute an orderly social structure with these various responses, lead a life based on mutual news exchange and they have no difficulty in achieving this correspondence. We could say that ants, with their impressive communication system, are hundred percent successful on subjects that human beings sometimes cannot resolve nor agree upon by talking (e.g. meeting, sharing, cleaning, defence, etc.)



News Exchange Between Groups Of Ants
First, scout ants go to food source that has been newly discovered. Then they call other ants by a liquid they secrete in their glands called pheromone (*). When the crowd round the food gets bigger, this pheromone secretion issues the workers a limit again. If the piece of food is very small or far away, the scouts make an adjustment in the number of ants trying to get to the food by issuing signals. If a nice piece of food is found, the ants try harder to leave more traces thus more ants from the nest come to the aid of the foragers. Whatever happens, no problems arise in the consumption of the food and its transportation to the nest, because what we have here is perfect "team work"

(*) PHEROMONES: Is composed of the words "pher" – carrying, and "hormone" – hormone and it means "hormone carriers". Pheromones are signals used between members of the same species and they are usually produced in special glands to be spread around.

Communication by pheromones is widespread among insects. Pheromone acts as a tool of sexual attraction between females and males. The type which is analyzed most is the one used by moths as the substance of mating. A female gypsy moth may influence male moths few kilometres away by producing a pheromone called "disparlure". Since the male is able to sense a few hundred molecules of the signaling female in just one milliliters of air, disparlure is effective even when dispersed over a very large area.


Pheromones play an important role in insect communications, the ants using pheromones as tracers to show the way to food sources. When a honey bee stings, not only does it leave its needle in the skin of its victim, but it also leaves a chemical that calls the other honey bees to attack. Similarly, worker ants of many species secrete pheromones as an alarm substance to be used when threatened by an enemy; the pheromone is dispersed in the air and gathers other workers. If these ants meet the enemy, they also produce pheromones, thus the signal either increases or decreases depending upon the nature of the danger.



Another example relates to the forager ants who migrate from one nest to another. These ants advance towards the old nest from the newly found nest by leaving a trace behind. Other workers examine the new nest and if they are convinced, they also start leaving their own pheromones (chemical traces) on top of the old trace. Therefore, the ants going between the two nests increase in number and these prepare the nest. During this work, the worker ants do not stay idle. They set up a certain organization and division of labour between themselves. The tasks assumed group-wide by the ants who detect the new nest are as follows:

1. Acting as gatherers in the new area.

2. Coming to the new area and keeping watch.

3. Following the guards to receive the meeting instruction.

4. Making a detailed survey of the area.

Of course, we cannot take it for granted without pondering at all that this perfect action plan has been in practice by the ants since day one of their existence, because the division of labour required by such a plan may not have been applied by individuals who thought only of their own lives and interests. Then the following question comes to mind: "Who has been inspiring this plan in the ants for millions of years and who ensures its application?" Naturally, great intellect and power are needed for the incredibly superior group communication required by this action plan. The truth of the matter is obvious. Allah, the Creator of all living beings and possessor of infinite wisdom, shows us the way to being able to comprehend His power by displaying to us this systematic world of the ants.



Chemical Communications
All of the communication categories listed above may be grouped under the heading of: "Chemical Signals". These chemical signals play the most important role in the organization of ant colonies. Semiochemicals is the general name given to the chemicals the ants utilize for the purpose of establishing communication. Basically, there are two kinds of semiochemicals: Their names are pheromones and allomones.
Allomone is a material used for inter-genus communication. Yet pheromone, as explained before, is a chemical signal which is mostly used within a genus and, when secreted by an ant, can be perceived by another as a smell. This chemical is thought to be produced in the endocrine glands. When an ant secretes this fluid as a signal, the others get the message by way of smell or taste and respond. The research done on ant pheromones has revealed that all signals are secreted in accordance with the needs of the colony. Also, the concentration of the pheromone secreted by the ants varies in terms of the urgency of the situation.9

As one can see, an in-depth knowledge of chemistry is needed to manage the tasks performed by the ants. We human beings can resolve the chemicals the ants produce only by tests we perform in laboratories, plus we go through years of education to be able to do this. Yet ants can secrete these whenever they need to, and have been doing so since the day they were born, and they know quite well what response to give to which secretion.



Communication between ants may be established by transmission of chemical signals by way of scent or taste

The fact that they accurately identify the chemicals right from the time they are born shows the existence of an "Instructor" who gives them chemistry education at birth. To claim the opposite would mean that the ants have learned chemistry over time and that they have started making experiments: this would be in violation of logic. The ants know these chemicals without having had any education when they were born. We cannot say that another ant or another living creature is the "teacher" of the ant either. No insect, no living creature – including human beings – has the capacity to teach ants how to manufacture chemicals and establish communication by these substances. If there is an act of teaching before birth, the only will which would be able to achieve this act is that of Allah, Who is the Creator of all living things and "the Lord (Educator)" of the heavens and earth.

Many people do not even know the meaning of "pheromone" – something that ants secrete continuously in their daily lives. Yet, each new-born ant performs in a perfect social communication system because of these chemicals; a social communication system which leaves no room for doubting the existence of a Creator with infinite power…



Endocrine Glands
There are basically a few endocrine glands where the complex chemical reactions we have talked about so far take place. Secretions produced in six endocrine glands provide this inter-ant chemical correspondence. However, these hormones do not display the same characteristics in each species of ant; each endocrine gland has a separate function in different species of ants. Now let us take a close look at these endocrine glands:

Dufour's Glands: The hormones produced in these glands are used in commands for alarm and meeting for attack.

The Venom Sack: An extensive formic acid production takes place in the venom sack. Also the venom which is produced to be used during attack and defence is formed here. The best example of this hormone is found in the fire ant. The venom of these ants may paralyse small animals and hurt human beings.

In a forest inhabited by ants who produce formic acid, researchers found formic acid at a level that could not be explained. All theories that were set forth were proven wrong and all research done produced no results. Eventually scientists concluded that formicine ants may be responsible for much of the formic acid found in previously unexplained quantities in the atmosphere above the Amazon forest and other habitats rich in these insects. It is estimated, very roughly, that formicine ants may release 1012 grams of formic acid globally each year. That is, these micro-creatures are able to produce formic acid on a scale that can even influence the atmosphere of the region they live in without any harm coming to themselves and this perplexes the researchers.10

Pygidial Glands: Three different species of ants use the secretions produced by these glands as their alarm system. The large desert harvester ant transmits this hormone in the form of a strong smell and issues a panic alarm; and the Pheidole biconstricta, which is a species of ant living in south America, utilizes the secretion it produces in these glands in chemical defence and attack alarms.

Sternal Glands: The secretions here are used during colony migrations and tracking prey and in gathering the "soldiers" together. The most original function of this secretion is to lubricate the seventh abdominal area of the ant that it frequently has to rotate when spurting out venom. Thus, the turning of its body for spurting venom becomes easier. Without this gland, which is a microscopic lubricant production centre, the defence system of the ant would be inefficient.

Yet this is not so, because there is a faultless design in place: How a tiny ant would turn its body to spray venom has been established, just as it has been pre-determined where and how this lubricant needed for reducing strain while rotating this body shall be produced.


On the left, we see the anatomical diagram of the Formica ant species. The brain and nervous system are shown in blue, the digestive system in pink, the heart in red and the endocrine glands and related structures in yellow: 1. Mandibular gland. 2. Pharynx 3. Pro pharyngeal gland 4. Post pharyngeal gland 5. Brain 6. Labial gland 7. Esophagus 8. Nervous system 9. Metapleural gland 10. Heart 11. Stomach 12. Proventriculus 13. Malpighian sacks 14. Middle intestine 15. Rectum 16. Anus 17. Dufour's gland 18. Venom sack


Metapleural Glands: It has been determined that the secretions from these glands are antiseptics, which protect the body surface and the nest from micro organisms. One active antibiotic component of Attas, for example, is phenylacetic acid, of which an ant carries an average of 1.4 micrograms at any given moment. The worker ant regularly releases small amounts of this mixture that serve as an antiseptic. When she is attached by enemy ants, she suddenly discharges large quantities of the metapleural gland secretions, which now function as a powerful repellent.11
Let us not forget that an ant does not know how to protect itself from microbes and does not even know of the existence of the microbes. Yet, its body produces the drug against its enemies without its knowing. The fact that there is always an antiseptic hormone in the body of the ant in an amount of 1.4 micrograms is a detail which has been worked out with great precision. Because He Who created the ant is the One Who caters for all the needs of all the living beings He created in the greatest detail, and who is indeed "Gracious".

As demonstrated, all endocrine glands mentioned in this chapter are units that have vital functions for the ants. A lack of or the insufficient functioning of any of these has adverse influences on all of the social and physical life of the ant. In fact, it makes it impossible for it to stay alive.

This demolishes absolutely the claims of the theory of evolution, because evolution claims that living beings have developed in stages and that starting from a primitive form, they have become more advanced gradually as a result of a series of beneficial coincidences. This would mean that the ants during the previous stages did not have part of the physiological characteristics they have today and that they acquired these later on. However, all the secretions of the ants we discussed above are vital and without them it is impossible for an ant species to survive.

Gracious is Allah to His servants: He gives sustenance to whom He pleases: and He is the Most Strong, the Almighty. (Surat ash-Shura: 19)

The conclusion from all this is that the ants were created at the outset with these endocrine glands and vital functions. That is, they did not wait for the development of the necessary endocrine glands for hundreds of thousands of years in order to have a defence and communications system. Had that been so, it would have been impossible for the ant genus to have survived. The only explanation is that the first ant species which existed on earth did so in the same complete and perfect form as it is in today. A perfect system cannot be other than the artwork of an intelligent designer. If we are able today to talk about an ant society with a population of billions, then we must admit that a single Creator has created these all at once.



The Identity Card of Ants: Colony Odor

We had mentioned previously that the ants can recognize each other and distinguish their relatives and friends from the same colony. Zoologists are still investigating how the ants can recognize their relatives. While man cannot distinguish between the few ants he may come across, let us see now how these creatures who are so completely alike can recognize each other.

An ant can easily detect if another ant is a nestmate or not. A worker ant casually sweeps her antennae over the other's body to recognize it, in case it enters the nest. It can immediately distinguish nestmates from strangers by virtue of the special colony odor it carries. If the ant who enters the nest is a stranger, the hosts attack this uninvited guest with extreme violence, locking their mandibles on body and appendages while stinging or spraying with formic acid, citronellal, or some other toxic substance. If the guest is a member of the same species but from a different colony, they can understand that too. In this case the guest ant is accepted in the nest. However, the guest ant is offered less food until it acquires the colony odor.12



How is the Colony Odor Obtained?
The source of the odor by which kin are recognized has not been identified with certainty. However, as far as it has been discovered, ants use hydrocarbons for the odor distinguishing process among themselves.
The experiments performed have shown that ants who belong to the same species, but to different colonies, identify each other by hydrocarbon differences. An interesting experiment was carried out to understand this. First, the workers in one colony were washed with solvents containing extracts of workers from alien colonies of the same species. It was observed that other workers from the focal colony reacted aggressively to them, whereas the responding workers reacted in a neutral or at most a mildly aggressive manner to workers washed with extracts of their nestmates.13



Has the Colony Odor Evolved?
A very significant point which has to be carefully considered with regard to the colony odor is the matter of evolution. How do the evolution mechanisms explain the fact that ants or members of other insect colonies (bees, termites etc.) can recognize their friends by their exclusive pheromones?
People who try to defend the theory of evolution in spite of all kinds of impossibilities claim that pheromones are the result of natural selection (The preservation of beneficial changes occurring in living beings and elimination of harmful ones). Yet, this is out of the question for any insect species including ants. A most striking example on this point is the honey bee. When a honey bee stings its enemy, it produces a pheromone for notifying the other bees that there is danger. However, it dies right after this. In this case, this means that this pheromone is produced only once. Then, it is impossible for such a "beneficial change" to be transferred to the following generations and become propagated by natural selection. This explanation indicates that it is impossible for the chemical communications between insect species that have the caste system to have evolved by the method of natural selection. This characteristic of the insects, which rebuts the theory of natural selection completely, demonstrates once more that the One who establishes the communications network among them is the One "who creates them for the first time."



Call of the Ants
Ants have a level of self-sacrifice which is very advanced and, due to this characteristic, they always invite their friends to each source of food they find and they share their food with them.
In such situations, the ant that discovers the food source directs the others to it. The following method is used for this: The first forager ant that finds the food source fills its crop and returns home. As it returns, it drags its tummy on the ground at short intervals and leaves a chemical signal. Yet its invitation does not end there. It tours around the ant hill for a short while. It does this between three to sixteen times. This motion ensures contact with its nestmates. When the forager wishes to return to the food source, all its mates that it has met wish to follow it. Yet only the friend which is in the closest antenna contact may accompany it outside. When the scout reaches the food, it returns immediately to the hill and assumes the part of the host. The scout and its other worker friend are joined to each other via continuous sensory signals and the pheromone hormone on the surfaces of their bodies.

Ants may reach their target by following the trail that goes to the food, even when there is no inviting ant. Because of the trail that successful foragers leave from the food to the nest, when the forager comes to the nest and does the "rock dance", its nestmates reach the food source without any help from the inviter.

Another interesting side to ants is their production of many chemical compounds to be used in the process of invitation, each one with a different task. It is not known why so many different chemicals are used to be gathered around the food source but, as far as one can tell, the diversity of such substances make sure that trails are different from each other. Apart from these, ants transmit different signals when sending messages, and the intensity of each signal is different from the others. They increase the intensity of the signal when the colony gets hungry, or when new nest areas are needed.

This solidarity among ant societies at such a high level may be regarded as behaviour that is worth considering and that can be taken as an example for men. Compared to human beings who unhesitatingly violate the rights of other individuals on account of their own interests – which are all they think about - the tremendously self-sacrificing ants are much more ethical.

It is in no way possible to explain the totally unselfish behaviour of ants, in terms of the theory of evolution. This is because evolution assumes that the only rule existing in nature is the fight for survival and the accompanying conflict. Yet, the behavioural characteristics that ants and many other types of animals display disprove this and show the reality of sacrifice. The theory of evolution, in fact, is nothing other than an attempt by those who wish to legalize their own selfishness to ascribe this selfishness to the whole of nature.



The Role of Touch in Chemical Communications
The communications by ants by touching each other with their antennae in maintaining intra-colony organization proves that there is in use an "antennal language" in its fullest sense.
The antenna signals created by touching in ants are used for various purposes like commencement of dinner, invitations and social meetings where nestmates get to know each other. For instance, in one type of worker ant species living in Africa, workers first touch by the antennae when they meet each other. Here, "antenna shaking" means just a salute and an invitation to the nest.

This invitation behaviour is even more striking in certain ant species (Hypoponera). When a pair of workers meet face to face, the inviting ant tilts its head sideways 90 degrees and strikes the upper and lower surfaces of the nestmate's head with its antennae. Often the solicited ant responds with similar antennation.14

When the ants touch the bodies of their nestmates, the goal is not to give them information but to receive information by detecting the chemicals they secrete. One ant beats the nestmate's body very lightly and rapidly with its antennae. When it gets close to its nestmate, its goal here is to bring the chemical signals as close as possible to the other. As a result, it will be able to detect and follow the odor trail its friend has just laid and reach the food source.

The most striking example that may be set forth for tactile communication is the exchange of liquid food from the crop of one ant to the alimentary tract of another. In an interesting test made on this subject, various parts of the bodies of worker ants of the Myrmica and Formica species were stimulated by human hair and were thus successfully induced to regugitate. The most susceptible ant was the one that had just finished a meal and was looking for a nestmate with whom to share its crop content. Researchers noted that certain insects and parasites were aware of such tactics and they were having themselves fed by practising this method. What the insect had to do to attract the ant's attention was just to touch the ant's body slightly with its antenna and its front leg. Then the touched ant would share its meal, even if the creature in contact with it is of a different type.15

Ants establishing tactile communication with each other.
The ability of an ant to understand what the other one wants by a short antenna contact shows that the ants may, in a sense, "speak" among themselves. How this "antennal language" used among ants is learned by all ants is another subject to think about. Are they undergoing training on this subject? To talk about the existence of such training, we must also talk about the existence of a superior Almighty Who provides it. Since it cannot be the ants who can provide such a training, this Almighty is Allah Who, by way of inspiration, teaches all ants a language with which to communicate.

The sharing behaviour practised among ants is a specimen of self-sacrifice that cannot be explained by the theory of evolution. Some evolutionists who see the adage "Big fish swallow small fish" as the key to life on earth are forced to withdraw such words when confronted with such self-sacrifice as is displayed by ants. In an ant colony, instead of the "big ant" developing by eating the "small ant", it rather attempts to feed the "small ant" and make it grow. All ants are ready to accept the food - that is, the "provision" - given to them and definitely make sure to share the excess with other members of the colony.

As a result, what all these examples show us is that the ants are a society of living beings who have submitted to the will of the Creator and who act under His inspiration. Therefore, it would not be right to regard them as organisms which are totally unconscious, because they do have a consciousness which reflects the will of their Creator. Indeed, Allah draws attention in the Qur'an to this interesting fact and notifies us that all living things are, in fact, a community among themselves, that is, they live under a Divine order and in accordance with inspiration.

There is not an animal that lives on the earth, nor a being that flies on its wings, but forms communities like you. We have not omitted anything from the Book, and they will be gathered to their Lord. (Surat al-An'am: 38)



Accoustical Communication

Accoustical communication is another method used frequently by ants. Two forms of sound production have been identified, body rapping against the substratum and stridulation, that is, rubbing of specialized body parts together to produce a "chirp".16

The sound signal produced by body rapping occurs most commonly in colonies that occupy wooden nests. For instance, carpenter ants communicate by "drumming". They start "drumming" in the face of any danger approaching their nests. This danger may be a sound that causes disturbance or a touch that they feel or a suddenly developing air current. The drummer ant strikes the substrate with its mandibles and gaster while rocking its body back and forth. This way, signals easily may be carried through the thin wooden shells of the nest for several decimeters or more.17 The European carpenter ants send vibrations to their nestmates who are 20 cm or even farther away by tapping with their chins and bellies on the woodwork of rooms and corridors. It must be taken into account here that 20 cm for an ant is a distance that would correspond to 60-70 metres for a human being.

Ants are almost deaf to vibrations transmitted through air. However, they are very sensitive to sound vibrations transmitted through objects. This is a very efficient warning signal for them. When they hear it they quicken their pace, they move towards the place where the vibration comes from and they attack all moving living beings that they see around.

No disobedience to this call by any of the members of the colony is an indication of successful organization of the ant society. One must admit that even a small human society responding to an alarm call collectively, at the same time, without any exception, and without anarchy developing, is a very difficult thing in practice. Yet ants are able to do what they are ordered without losing any time and so they are able to lead their lives without interrupting the discipline within the colony even for a moment.

The production of chirps is more complex as a system than drumming. The sound produced is created by rubbing certain parts of the body together. Ants produce this sound by rubbing together the organs at the rear of their bodies. If you get your ear close to the worker harvester ants, you may hear them produce a high pitched voice all the time.

Three major functions of stridulation have been discovered in various species. These may be listed as follows:

1. Acoustical communication in leaf cutter ants serves as an underground alarm system. It is usually employed when a part of the colony is buried by a cave-in of the nest. Workers start moving to perform rescue excavations in response to received sound signals.

2. High pitched voices are used in some species during mating by queens. When young queens gather on the ground or vegetation for mating, and have obtained enough sperm, they produce high pitched sounds to escape from the swarms of males chasing them.

3. Yet in other species, sound is used to enhance the effectiveness of pheromones produced during the gathering of nestmates to find food or new nest sites.18

Sometimes in certain species, the food searchers make it possible for other ants to surround the prey with signals they produce when they find a prey. Gathering together of the workers and getting to the prey is realized within 1-2 minutes on account of this high pitched voice. These features are a great advantage for the ant species.



For An Eye That Sees…
With their various communication methods, ants may be compared to men who can speak several foreign languages. They are able to communicate with 3-4 different languages among themselves and they are able to pursue their lives in the least problematic manner. They are able to subsist their colonies with populations of hundreds of thousands or sometimes millions, and survive all their lives without causing any confusion.
Yet this communication system we have been describing so far is just one of the miraculous features of the animal world. When we analyse both people and also all other living beings (From single-celled to multi-celled) we can discover characteristics that are different from each other, with each being a separate and individual miracle with its place in an ecological order.

For an eye that can notice all these miracles that are created around it, and a heart that can feel, it will be sufficient to look at the extraordinary communication system of the ant of millimetric dimensions to appreciate the infinite power, knowledge and wisdom of Allah Who is the sole Owner and Sovereign of all living things. In the Qur'an, Allah refers to these people who do not have this capability and who may not appreciate His might:

Have they not travelled about the earth and do they not have hearts to understand with or ears to hear with? It is not their eyes which are blind but the hearts in their breasts which are blind. (Surat al-Hajj:46)


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Chapter 3

Ant Species

Although all ants may seem alike, they are divided into many different species based on their lifestyles and physical attributes. These living beings in fact have approximately 8800 species. Each species also has special admirable attributes. Now, let us discuss some of these species, their lifestyles and characteristics.



Leaf Cutter Ants
The specific characteristic of the leaf cutter ants also called "atta," is their habit of transporting the leaf pieces that they cut out on their heads. The ants hide under leaves that are quite large compared to their own sizes. These they secure in their closely shut chins. Therefore, the return voyage of worker ants after a day's work presents a very interesting picture. Anyone who sees this happening would feel as if the floor of the forest were alive and walking. In rain forests their actions remove about 15 percent of leaf production.19 The reason for their carrying leaf pieces is, of course, not protection from the sun. Ants do not utilize these leaf pieces as food either. Then, in what way do they use so many leaves?
It has been discovered that, surprisingly, Attas use these leaves in fungus culturing. Ants cannot eat the leaves themselves, because they do not have enzymes in their bodies that could digest the cellulose in the leaves. Worker ants make a heap of these leaf pieces after chewing them and insert them into the garden substratum. In these chambers, they grow fungus on the leaves. This way, they obtain the required protein from the shoots of the fungus.20

However, when Attas are removed, the garden would normally begin to deteriorate and would soon be overwhelmed by weed fungi. Then, how can the Attas, who clean their gardens only before "planting," be protected against weed fungi? The trick of maintaining a pure fungus culture without constant weeding seems to depend upon the saliva the ants work into the compost as they chew it up. It is thought that the saliva contains an antibiotic that inhibits the growth of undesirable fungi. It probably contains a growth-promoter for the right fungus, too.21

What one has to ponder upon is the following: How have these ants learned to cultivate fungus? Is it possible that one day one of the ants took a leaf in its mouth by coincidence and chewed it, and then again by chance, it placed this liquid that had become porridge-like on a dry leaf floor which, by sheer coincidence is a totally appropriate place, and other ants brought pieces of fungus and planted them there and, finally, the ants which had anticipated that some sort of food that they could eat would grow there, started cleaning the garden, throwing out unnecessary material, and harvesting? And then they went over and conveyed this process to the whole colony one by one? Also, why would they have carried all those leaves to their nests although they could not eat them?

Furthermore, how could these ants have created the saliva that they use while chewing the leaves for the production of fungi? Even it is thought that they may form this saliva, one way or the other, with what information could they produce an antibiotic in their saliva which prevents the formation of weed fungi? Does it not require having a significant knowledge of chemistry to achieve such a process? Even if they did have such knowledge - which is impossible- how could they apply it and get their saliva to have this antibiotic substance characteristic?

When one thinks about how ants could realize such a miraculous event, hundreds of similar questions come up to none of which there are any answers.

On the other hand, if a single explanatory answer could be given, all these questions would have been answered. Ants have been designed and programmed to achieve the job they are performing. The observed event is sufficient to prove that ants are born or rather caused to be born knowing farming. Such complex behavioural patterns are not phenomena which may develop in stages and with time. They are the work of a comprehensive knowledge and a supreme intellect. Thus the claims by evolutionists that beneficial behaviour is selected in time and the required organs develop through mutations seem totally illogical. It is, of course, no one other than Allah who gives this knowledge to the ants from day one, and Who creates them with all these astonishing features. It is Allah who is the "Creator" (Sani). The features of the Atta ants we mention above set forth a picture we shall face frequently all throughout this book. We are talking about a living being without the ability to think, but which nevertheless achieves a great task displaying a tremendous intellect. This is hard for man to conceive of.

1)Inside the nest, slightly smaller workers chop leaves into bits.

2)The next caste chews these bits into pulp and fertilizes with deposits of enzyme-rich fecal fluid.

3) Other ants apply the fertile leaf paste over a base of dried leaves in new chambers.

4) Another caste hauls in bits of fungus from older chambers and plants it in the leaf paste. Bits of fungus spread on the leaf paste like frost.

5) A teeming caste of dwarfs cleans and weeds the garden, then harvests the fungus for others to eat.22


Then, what does this all mean?

There is only one answer and it is a simple one: If this animal has no capacity to think in order to enable it to do what it is doing, then its show of intellect, in fact, introduces us somebody else's Wisdom. The Creator Who has caused the ant to exist is letting this animal do things beyond its capacity to show His existence and superiority in His creation. The ant acts under Allah's inspiration and the intellect it displays is in fact, the Wisdom of Allah.

Actually, a similar situation exists in the whole of the animal world. We meet creatures who display a very superior intellect, although they have neither an independent mind nor the capacity for judgement. The ant is one of the most striking of these and like other animals, acts, in fact, in accordance with the programme it has been given by the Will that trains it. It reflects the Wisdom and power of Possessor of that Will, that is, Allah.

Now, let us continue reviewing the superior skills of ants with this basic knowledge.



The Attas' Interesting Defence Methods


Above we see an Atta, along with its small-sized guard, carrying a leaf

Medium-sized workers of the leaf cutter ant colony spend almost all their days in carrying leaves. It becomes difficult for them to protect themselves during this process, because they secure the leaves with the chins that they use for protecting themselves. Then, if they are not able to protect themselves, who does?

It has been observed that leaf cutter worker ants walk around with smaller size workers all the time. At first, it was thought that this was accidental. Then, the cause for this was researched and the finding, which was the result of a long analysis, was an astonishing example of cooperation.

Medium-sized ants, given the task of carrying leaves use an interesting defence system against a hostile type of fly. This hostile fly has chosen a special place to lay its eggs - the head portion of each ant. The maggot hatching from the egg would feed on the ant's head, eventually decapitating the ant. Without their smaller assistants, the worker ants are defenceless against this fly species that is always ready to attack. Under normal circumstances, the ants who, with their scissors like sharp mandibles, are able to chase away the flies trying to land on them, cannot do this while carrying leaves. Therefore, they place another ant to defend them, on the leaf that they carry and during the attack, these small guards fight against the enemy.23




Highways of Attas
The road that Attas use, while carrying the leaves they cut back to home, seems like a miniature highway. Ants who crawl slowly on it collect all twigs, small gravel, grass and wild plants and put them to one side. Thus, they make a clear path for themselves. After a long period of intensive work, this highway becomes straight and smooth as if built with a special device.


When carrying the leaves they cut, Attas clear the road they use of all kinds of twig bits, gravel and grass remnants. Thus they prepare what amounts to a "highway" for themselves.


The Atta colony consists of workers the size of a single grain of sand, soldiers who are many times larger and medium-sized "Marathon runners". Marathon runners run around to bring leaf pieces to the nest. These ants are so industrious that, scaled to human dimensions, each worker runs the equivalent of four-minute mile for 30-some miles (48 km.), with 500 pounds (227 kg.) slung over her shoulders.24

In an Atta nest, fist-sized galleries may be found that may go 6 metres deep. The miniature workers may move some 40 tons of soil while digging the many chambers of their huge nests.25 The building of these nests in a few years by ants is comparable in difficulty and high standard of professionalism to man's construction of the Great Wall of China.

This is proof that the Attas may not be regarded as ordinary simple creatures. These ants, who are extremely hard working, are able to achieve complex tasks that a man would find difficult to do. Indeed, the only Possessor of might Who could have given them such skills is Allah. To say that they have acquired all these skills on their own and of their own accord would be illogical.



Leaf Cutting Technique of Attas

When the ant cuts the leaf with its mandibles, its whole body vibrates. Scientists have observed that this shaking fixes the leaves, thus facilitating the cutting. At the same time, the sound serves to attract other workers-all females-to the site to finish off the leaf.26 The ant rubs two small organs on his belly to produce this vibration that may be heard as a very slight sound by human beings. This vibration is sent through the body until reaching the sickle-like mandibles of the ant. By rapidly oscillating her hind end, this ant cuts out a crescent of leaf with vibrating mandibles in much the same manner as an electric carving knife.






This technique facilitates the cutting of the leaf. Yet, it is known that such vibrations serve another purpose as well. Seeing a leaf-cutting ant attracts others to the same place because many other plants in the regions where Attas live are poisonous. The testing of each leaf by an ant being such a risky procedure, they always go to locations where others have successfully completed their tasks.



Weaver Ants

Weaver ants live in the trees building themselves nests out of leaves. By combining the leaves, they are able to form nests over a few trees, thus supporting a much larger population.

The stages of building are interesting. First, workers individually seek locations in the colony territory that are suitable for expansion. When they find a suitable branch, they disperse over the leaves of the branch and start pulling in the leaves from the sides. When an ant succeeds in bending a portion of a leaf, the workers close by also move towards it and start pulling the leaf together. If the leaf is wider than the size of the ant, or if it is necessary to pull two leaves together, the workers make suspension bridges between the points to be joined. Later on, some of the ants in the chain climb on the backs of the ants beside them, thus shortening the chain, and the joining of the ends of the leaf is achieved. When the leaf takes a tent-like shape, some of the ants keep holding the leaf with their legs and mandibles and others go back to the old nest and carry specially raised larvae to this region. Workers rub the larvae back and forth over the joints of the leaf, using them as a source of silk. With the silk secreted from an opening right below the mouths of the larvae, the leaves are fastened at the required locations. That is, the larvae are used as sewing machines.27

The silk glands of these spinning larvae are much larger, but they may be carried easily because they are smaller in size. The larvae give all their silk for the needs of the colonies instead of using them for themselves. Instead of producing silk slowly from their silk glands, they expel a broad thread of silk, and they do not even try to build their own cocoons. In the remaining portion of their lives, worker ants will do everything the larvae have to do for them. As is evident, these larvae live only as "silk manufacturers".28

How the ants could develop such cooperation has never been explained by scientists. Another unexplained point is how this behaviour emerged for the first time during this alleged term of evolution. As with the wings of the insects, the eyes of the vertebrates and other biological miracles, how such sophisticated and beneficial faculties developed by evolving from the first living beings is a phenomenon which cannot be explained by the basic principles of evolution. It is a dead end for defenders of evolution.



Phases of nest building by weaver ants... In the first phase, ants pick the right leaves on the tree they plan to settle in, and combine them by pulling from two sides. Later on, they bring their silk spinning larvae, as shown at the bottom, and sew the leaves together by using them as sewing machines


It would not of course, be logical to say that one day the larvae came together and said that "some of us have to produce silk to meet the needs of the whole colony, so let us adjust our weights and silk glands accordingly." That would not be a very smart theory. We, therefore, have to admit that larvae have been created knowing what to do. In other words, Allah, Who created these larvae, shaped them in such a way as is suitable for their tasks.



Harvester Ants

Some of the ants, as mentioned before, are expert "farmers". Among these, it is possible to list harvester ants, apart from the Attas we talked about before.

The feeding mechanisms of harvester ants are quite sophisticated and complex as compared to the feeding mechanisms of other types of ants. These collect seeds and keep them in specially prepared rooms. These seeds, made up of starch, are used for producing the sugar that will feed the larvae and other workers. While many ants use the seeds and kernels as food, only harvester ants have a system based on gathering seeds and processing them.



Harvester ants carry starchy seeds to special chambers and convert them into a form to be used in the nourishment of workers.

In the chambers we see in second picture, seeds to be used in the arid season are stored by harvester ants.



These ants collect the seeds in the growing season and store them for use in the arid season. In special rooms in the nest, they sort out the seeds from other objects mistakenly brought back. Some groups of ants stay in the nest by the hour, chewing the seeds' contents and thus producing so-called ant bread. The ants were once thought to use some learned process to convert the seeds' starch into the sugar they eat. It is now known that the abundant saliva they secrete while chewing accomplishes this transformation.29
The ants we speak of here have not, of course, had any education in chemistry. Neither can they anticipate that their saliva will transform the seeds they collect randomly into sugar that they can eat. Yet, the lives of these ants depend on a series of chemical transformations that they do not know about and cannot know about. When even men do not know of such a transformation process taking place in the bodies of the ants – and they have just learned the details in the last few years – how have the ants managed to be fed by this method for millenniums?



Honey Ants

Many types of ants are fed with the digestive wastes of aphids called "honey". This substance in fact bears no relation to real honey. However, the digestive waste of aphids, which have fed on plant sap, is given this name because it contains a high proportion of sugar. Thus, the workers of this species, called honey ants, collect honey from aphids, coccidae, and flowers. The ants' method of collecting honey from the aphid is very interesting. The ant approaches the aphid and starts shoving its belly. The aphid gives a drop of digestive waste to the ant. The ant starts shoving the belly of the aphid more and more to get more honey and sucks the liquid that comes out. Then how do they utilize this sugared food and what good is this food for them later on?

There is a great division of labour among honey ants in this phase. Some ants are used as "jars" to keep the nectar collected by other workers!…

In every nest, there is one queen, workers and also honey carriers. The colonies of these ants are usually located near the dwarf oak trees the workers can extract nectars from. After the workers carry the nectar, once having swallowed it, to their nests, they take it out of their mouths and pour it into the mouths of young workers who will keep the honey. These workers, nicknamed honeypots, use their own bodies to store the sweet liquid food the colony often needs to get through hard times in the desert. They are fed until they swell up to the size of blueberries. Then they dangle like amber globes from the ceilings of their chambers until called upon to regurgitate nectar to hungry sisters.30 While attached to this ceiling, they look like a small and translucent bunch of grapes. If any of them falls down, the workers return it to its previous position right away. Honey in the honey pots weighs almost 8 times as much as an ant.

In winter, or in the arid season, ordinary workers visit the honey pots to meet their daily food demands. The worker ant places its mouth on to the "pot's" and the pot exudes a small drop of honey from its store by contracting its muscles. The workers consume this honey of high nutritional value as food in adverse seasons.

It is an interesting and awe-inspiring situation for a living being to reach a weight 8 times its own, having decided to serve as a honey pot, and to be able to live hanging from its feet without any harm coming to it. Why have they felt the need to accept such a difficult and dangerous position? Have they thought about this unique storage technique themselves and controlled their bodily developments accordingly? Just think, while a man cannot even control the slightest development in his body, how can an ant, who does not even have a brain in the real sense, do this on its own?


As shown in the picture above, honey pots that have been inflated by storing food look like grapes
Honey ants display behavior that the evolution theory cannot explain. It is totally illogical to maintain that they have developed the honey storage method and the organs required for it by chance. In fact, in scientific sources, we meet many realistic statements on this and similar subjects. Take, for instance, the explanation of Prof. Etienne Rabaud, Director of the Institute of Biology of the Paris University:

These examples (for instance honey ants) show clearly that various organs have not been developed for performing certain functions by the living beings, although their prior existence has sometimes led to certain acts and tasks to be performed and sometimes not. This shows that the organs have not developed out of the adaptation by living beings to life conditions, but life conditions have arisen out of prior existence of such organs and out of their functions as we have seen. The following question may be asked as Darwin did: Does the event of clearing, or weeding out of one who loses the capacity to live, or the adaptation of organs to new conditions take place in this evolution? We contend that events have proven that such an evolution, or such a change, has not occurred. In fact, a totally different phenomenon has taken place.31

These explanations given by Professor Rabaud show us clearly a conclusion that anyone may arrive at by thinking with his conscience for just a very short time. A sole Creator Who is the real source of knowledge and intellect has created all living beings with their faultless organs and perfect behaviour. This truth has been expressed in the Qur'an as follows:

He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, the Giver of Forms. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names: Everything in the heavens and earth glorifies Him. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat Al-Hashr: 24)



Wood Ants

Wood ants are famous for the hills they build from pine needles and thin branches on top of their underground nests. The nest is usually founded around a tree log. The portion of the nest above ground, made up of twigs, leaf stems, and pine needles, is the roof of the nest. This roof may reach up to 2 metres in height, it prevents seepage of rain inside and regulates the temperature of the nest in very hot or very cold weather.32


In the picture, a wood ant nest is shown. The height of these nests built by wood ants from pine needles and twigs may reach approximately 2 metres
Wood ants, like the others, are also very hard working. They keep re-decorating their nests continuously. They transfer the original surface layer to the lower layers in stages and they bring up material from the lower layers to replace the upper level. An interesting observation was made of the changes the ants make in the nest. Blue dye was sprayed on top of the hill of the nest and in four days it was observed that the top of the hill was again brown. Blue particles were found 8-10 cms below the surface. Within one month these particles went down to a depth of 40 cm. Subsequently, these blue particles have reached the surface once again.

Well, do these ants perform this continuous transportation process just for the sake of doing it? No. Researchers explain why wood ants engage in this perpetual act as follows: The perpetual motion dries the humid substances inside at the surface and prevents the formation of fungi. Otherwise, the ants would have a nest occupied by harmful fungi.

In such a situation there are two possibilities. One is that very long ago the ants, by their own research, discovered the fact that fungi develop in a humid environment, (something which man discovered as a result of long term scientific research) and developed the most rational method to eliminate this problem! The other possibility is that the conception and implementation of this perfect process can only be through inspiration by a supreme intellect. The impossibility of the first case is obvious. The One Who has inspired the ants to protect themselves from the fungi and shown them how to do so is, of course, the Almighty Allah.



Different Reproduction Methods of Wood Ants

The males and queens of wood ants are winged. However, they do not fly by a nuptial flight as other small ant species do. Mating is realized on the surface of the nest or some place nearby. After mating, the queen picks off its wings and does one of the following three things:

(1) She returns to the nest where she has previously lived as a larva and leaves her eggs there.

(2) Sometimes she leaves the nest with workers carrying her and looks for a new place to build a nest.

(3) If she leaves on her own, she enters the nest of smaller related species, like the black ant Formica Fusca, and replaces the queen there. The queen leaves her eggs to be looked after by the Fusca workers in there. For a while there are both guest workers and host workers in the nest. However, since the hosts do not have a queen, after a while the workers die and the wood queens acquire an established nest without doing anything.33
Wood ants are very well armed for war. When faced with danger, the wood ant bends the lower part of its abdomen from between its legs and squirts formic acid on its enemy. Or, during fighting, it bites the enemy with its pointed chin and injects acid in the wound. With these features, the animal acts like a chemical weapon.

Its producing formic acid in its body without giving any harm to itself and its managing to use it in the best way are, no doubt, indications of a flawless design.



In the tactics of queen wood ants discussed in section 3, a clear consciousness is observed. However, it is obvious that such consciousness may not belong to the ant itself. The queen ant has never seen any place other than the few square metres within her nest. She goes inside a colony which she has never seen or has not known of before, and knows who she should eliminate in that colony. She achieves this by overcoming all obstacles. All these factors prove beyond doubt that the queen ant is acting under inspiration. The above mentioned phenomena are clear proof of the power and sovereignty of Allah over all living creatures.



Legionary Ants

One of the most feared animals of the forests is the legionary ant. The reason for the name "army" being given to this ant community is their acting under a true military discipline.
Legionary ants who have formed a temporary nest by hanging on to each other with their feet


Legionary ants are carnivores and they eat up everything in sight. Each ant is 6 to 12 millimetres long, but their incredible number and discipline make up for the disadvantage of their small size.

Direct sunlight may kill the legionary ants in a short time. Therefore they travel either at night or in the shade. Due to their sensitivity to light, they dig long tunnels while advancing. Most of the ants run in these tunnels without going outside. This does not decrease their speed, because they can dig the tunnels very fast with their strong mandibles. Thus, running is both fast and secret. Legionaries move as very large armies, going over all obstructions except fire and water, although they are totally blind.34

Legionary ants tear their prey apart where they find it and carry small pieces of it to their temporary nests. Quite a lot of food is needed for a legionary ant colony. The approximate daily need of a medium size colony, consisting of 80,000 adult ants and 30,000 larvae, is about half a gallon (2.27 litres) of animal product food.35

Since legionary ants do not have a fixed nest, they are always moving. The movements and migrations of the colonies depend on the production cycle. The queen produces approximately 25-35,000 eggs during two days each month. A few days before the laying of the eggs, the colony halts and gathers in a wide area. The ants hang on to each other by their hook shaped legs and form a temporary nest. The empty space in the middle acts as a chamber ready for the queen and the new generation. Here, naturally, the legs and joints of the ants at the very top are subject to excessive loading. Yet, since they are built to endure weights several hundred times more than their own weights, they can hold the whole colony without much problem.36


Chained together, army ants create a living nest. On the move at all times, a colony of army ants can make no permanent home on the grounds or in trees. But each night the workers join together to create shelters out of their own bodies. First, several ants choose an object near the ground, like a log, and dangle from it with their claws interlocked. Other ants arrive, run down the strands, and fasten on until strands become ropes that fuse into a mass a meter across called a bivouac; home is the entire colony of 200,000 to 750,000 individuals. At the center rests the queen and her brood. In the morning ants begin to disentangle to go out and raid.


To hunt most efficiently, the ants time their movements to the needs of a developing brood, alternating between sedentary and nomadic phases. During the resting period of about 20 days, the fat, immobile queen produces 50,000 to 100,000 eggs while other offspring lie in the quiescent pupal stage. On most days, workers, foraging only for themselves and the queen, make short raids from the nest in a rosette pattern. On each raid they vary their direction by an average of 123 degrees, thus avoiding recombing the same ground.37
Ants can unerringly calculate the 123° by themselves, something which man cannot calculate without an instrument. This would appear to indicate a thorough knowledge of mathematics. Yet ants do not know math, they cannot even count. So this shows that what they do is done by special inspiration, and not consciously.

When the first larvae hatch, workers collect food and, in the meantime, the community stays stationary. Pieces of food are fed directly to the larvae. The queen's being ready for laying again usually coincides with earlier larvae's transition into the pupa stage. In this stage, the community stops once again. The coinciding of the laying of eggs by the queen and the larvae going into the pupa stage indicates a conscious planning since it decreases the time for which the army stops.

The development of larvae prompts the older ants to start a new migration cycle. This is how it works: larvae give out a secretion when they are licked and cleaned by the workers. Research has shown that this fluid is effective in the decision to migrate.38

It would be a weakness of logic to claim that larvae which have not even gained the identity of an ant yet, have thought of secreting such a fluid and have directed the whole colony towards fulfilling their needs. The only thing that a smart observer can spot is the existence of a supreme Creator and His information and sovereignty that are all around us.



Velvet Ants

Velvet ants, which lead their lives in deserts, have excessively hairy bodies. Their natural coat serves as a heat-isolating layer. It preserves the heat in during the cold nights of the desert, and protects them from the heat during the day. Male velvet ants, because of their wings, are able to avoid the heat of the sand by flying. Yet female velvet ants have to walk around on hot sand, because they have no wings. They need this coat to be protected from the heat coming from ground as well as from the sun.


In these pictures two velvet ants of different species are seen. The common feature of velvet ants is their having a "coat" that would isolate them from the heat of the environment they inhabit.


Then, what is the explanation for the insect having such a "coat" to protect it from adverse weather conditions? It is impossible to claim that the animal has acquired it by adapting to nature as part of the process of evolution, because this would lead to many questions remaining unanswered: Did the female velvet ants die due to high temperatures before having such a coat? If this was the case, how did they wait for generations to have a coat "by coincidence"? Through what kind of a coincidence did they get this body?
These questions are, of course, without answers, because these insects could not have obtained their "coats" that protect them from the heat by the mechanisms evolutionists keep suggesting, because these ants cannot live without this coat, and they have no time to wait for mutations which occur very seldom - and which are all harmful. It is clear that the animals have been designed from the outset to withstand the climate they live in.

Female velvet ants look for any type of insect nest or bee hive that they can use after leaving their place of mating. When they do, they go inside the nest. They are equipped to fend off any eviction attempts and eventually they stay on in the nest, because the velvet ants have strong arms and a shield which allow them to go inside even bee hives. Their outer shells are exceptionally thick and hard. Zoologists claim that they have difficulty in piercing the chest of the velvet ant with a steel pin.39

Once inside, the velvet queen ant, which has all kinds of equipment with which to settle in the bee hives, starts feeding on the honey stock. Also, it leaves its eggs in the pupa cells of the bees or their cocoons. The ant larvae that hatch, feed on host pupae and later on they become pupae also. Bees leave the nest at the end of summer. Velvet ants spend the winter in this nest as pupae. According to one record, in a bee nest, there have been found 76 velvet ants and only two bees.40 This example shows how effective and successful the female velvet ant is in dealing with the female bee. The queen velvet ant, using subtle tactics, captures the nest from within and gains control of the nest herself.

What can be said here is that the velvet ant knows the bees very well and, moreover, knows very well how to deceive them, too. Then can it be anybody other than the Creator of the bee Who inspires her with the physical characteristics of the bee, its life style and nest structure? The only logical explanation is the acceptance of the existence of a sole Creator Who has created ants, bees and, in fact, all living beings.



Fire Ants

Fire ants are red insects of diminutive size. Yet they can achieve great things in spite of their smallness. The queens of these ants, which have 20 varieties in America alone, may produce as many as 5,000 eggs a day. While many ant species colonies have a few hundred workers, the colonies of this species have about half a million workers. A single mated fire ant queen can produce a colony of 240,000 workers.41

Fire ant workers very aggressively attack their prey with poisonous needles. It has been recorded that young fire ants have injured or even killed reptiles or baby deer. Also these aggressive ants may cause power failures by tearing up electricity cables. For a while they invaded South America and caused frightening damage. The journals and magazines of that year tell us that these ants have chewed through electrical cables and caused power cuts; they have caused damage to crops worth billions of dollars; they have caused motorways to collapse and have stung people, causing allergic shocks that have rendered them helpless. They have done all this with their powerful mandibles, even digging tunnels under roads causing motorways, roads to collapse and also causing other kinds of havoc in the environment.



Protection from Germs

American experts have tried various methods to prevent the above-mentioned damage done by fire ants. They considered spreading a contagious disease inside the colony by injecting germs into the flies the ants eat. Yet, astonishingly, it was seen that such flies with germs in no way hurt the ants. In the analysis it was found out that the ants have one of the most interesting defence systems in the world of living beings: a structure in their throats which protect them from germs… Because of this structure, the bacteria in anything that the ants eat were held at the throat without entering into the body.

But we have not come to the end of the protection systems of the fire ants that are the product of a superior intellect. They also spurt an anti-microbial fluid produced in their venom sacs around the nest and on the larvae. Thus, they achieve total disinfection of the nest and the larvae.42

These ants, equipped as they are with an extraordinary defence system, are certainly not aware of it. Can any person with a conscience claim that such a system has evolved by chance? Neither may it be claimed that the ants have founded such a system on their own. Then who is it that placed this filter in the throats of the ants, and who inspired them to produce an anti-microbial fluid? Without doubt, the Creator of such characteristics as man, ants and random luck cannot produce is Allah, Who is All-Knowing.



Hard Working Ants

The defense specialist fire ants are also highly skilled and hard working. They may build hills 30 cm high and 60 cm wide, or they can dig labyrinthine tunnels that can go 1.5 m deep under ground. In certain areas, fire ants have built small hills numbering up to 350. The capacity of such small beings to set up such huge nests, of course, depends on their industriousness. Then what is the power that makes the ants one of the most industrious living beings in the world? It is truly astonishing that they work all day long without stopping or resting, and build nests dispersed over vast areas. Not a single one says, "I worked too hard today, let me rest a bit," or "I don't want to work today. Let me sit in a corner." This is a subject that must be carefully considered. It must not be forgotten that there are times when human beings give in to exhaustion, even when they know they have to conclude a task, and there are times when they do not apply their will, because they are tired or they feel lazy. Yet ants display great effort and the will to bring any job they start to fruition. He Who gives the ants this will and resolve, that is even stronger than that of man's, is of course the sole master of all beings – Allah.



Master Of Tactic Who Can Penetrate Defence Systems

The most frightening enemy of fire ants is Solenopsis Davgeri, which is a parasitic ant species. This living being which can penetrate their multi-leveled defence system, which even man has difficulty in understanding, is yet another ant species. It is not known how this parasite ant can "seep into" the nest of the fire ant. Yet once it is in, the parasite ant immediately attacks the queen and clamps on to her antenna, legs or thorax. While the worker ants normally have to destroy any aggressor, why they do nothing against this particular creature seems hard to explain. Yet there is a simple answer. In itself attaching to her throat, the parasite mimics the queen's pheromones. Subsequently, the workers devote their efforts to feeding the parasites, half a dozen of which might yoke the queen, because they think that this parasite imitating her pheromones, is their queen. Their queen on the other hand starves to death in full view of the workers who serve her.43



Desert Ants

It is impossible to live in burning sand at 150°F for many living beings including man. Yet there are ants who can continue to live at this temperature. Well, how can Namib Ocymyrmex, which is a medium-sized, long-legged, black desert ant live in such intense heat?

A typical day in the desert does not start at a certain time for Namib ants. What starts the day is the standard sand surface temperature having reached 30 degrees. Right at this point the ants start getting out of their underground nests to look for food. Since their bodies are very cold, they cannot move straight and they walk with a wobble. Yet when the temperature increases, more ants come out and they start moving straighter and faster. The temperature where the in-out traffic of the nest is highest is 52.2 degrees. When the temperature goes above this point, the movement goes on, but as it reaches 67.8 degrees, the traffic stops. This temperature is reached about one hour before noon. As the temperature starts falling in the afternoon, the food search starts again and continues until the surface temperature drops to 30 degrees.

These ants may look for food for about six days away from the nest without becoming a prey to any animals. During this time they carry food home weighing 15-20 times their own weight.

Ants, who find it impossible to return to the nest when the temperature in the desert becomes impossibly high, use quite an interesting method for protection from heat. The air temperature decreases as one rises above the sand. For instance, while the temperature of the sand is 67.8 degrees, a little above it, the air temperature is 55 degrees. Therefore, when the sand surface temperature is above 52.2 degrees, ants climb on to objects like plants and stay there for a while to cool. The temperature of the small body of the ant soon falls to the ambient temperature. In tree trunks, the temperature varies between 30 and 38.3 degrees. These cooling breaks make it possible for the ant to look for food in burning heat, albeit intermittently.

In high temperatures, if the ant cannot find a cool place within a few seconds, it is going to die from heat. In fact, in sand temperatures of over 52.2 degrees, they take such a risk every time they leave their nests. Then how have desert ants escaped this inevitable end? Since they do not measure the temperature with a thermometre, we can safely say that they came into existence knowing what to do at what temperature – and knowing these things from the very first time they left the nest.

Yes, the desert ant has been created and equipped with special features to live in the desert. Allah, Who has created a sharp mandible for leaf cutter ants has inspired in the desert ants the knowledge of how to protect themselves.


Chapter 4

Symbiosis

There is a basic logic to be used in analyzing evidence of the creation of living beings. We can explain this logic with a simple example.

While walking on barren land, you suddenly find a metal key on the ground. Imagine that you pick up this key without knowing what it's good for and you keep on walking. Again imagine that you come up to an empty house a few hundred metres from where you found the key. And again imagine that you try the key in the lock of the house, thinking it might work.

If the key opens the door of this house easily, what conclusion do you arrive at logically?

It is simple. You conclude that this key belongs to the door of this house. That is, it has been designed specially to open this lock. It is obvious that the same craftsman has manufactured both the lock and the key. Therefore the harmony between them is the product of a conscious design.

Yet, if somebody says to you, "You're wrong. The key you found bears no relation to that lock. It is pure coincidence that that key fits that lock, what do you think?" Of course, you will find this proposition deficient in logic, because in this world there are millions of locks and millions of keys that do not fit. It is obviously impossible for two that fit perfectly, out of millions of different ones, to be located beside each other coincidentially.

Especially if the said key is quite complex with all kinds of ins and outs, that is if it is not straight and simple like a room key. The claim of "coincidence" becomes even more absurd because, each detail on the key must have its counterpart in the lock as well, thus decreasing the probability of this coincidence millions of times.

If there are three locks to the door and you have found not one but three keys lying beside each other and all three keys have each opened one of the locks, would you believe an allegation that these keys are pieces of metal that fit the locks by chance? Furthermore, would you not think that the person who makes such a claim either has mental problems or is trying to deceive you and hide something from you?

The logical result presented by this example is simple but very significant: If there is a one-to-one fit between two independent pieces, that is, all details of these two pieces are in perfect harmony, this proves that there is a deliberate design somewhere. The key fits the lock because it has been consciously made by a skilled craftsman. A video cassette goes into a video machine easily and sits in it perfectly because it has been designed by a purposeful designer.

Looking at all these, the following general solution may be arrived at. If there is harmony between two living beings which is realized by the perfect fit of different organs, we can say that this harmony is clear proof of conscious creation. Since the existing harmony indicates a consciousness that may not be explained by chance and since the source of this consciousness may not be these animals, it is inevitable that we accept the existence of a conscious Creator Who "designs" these animals.

Now, we can re-enter the world of the ants by using this fundamental logic. Our subject in this chapter is certain living beings, who live together and show striking harmony with the ants.



Animals Who Live Together With the Ants
It has been known for over a century that many species of insects exist which live together with the ants and that there are symbiotic relations between them. Many of these do this as ransackers. The others live as dependants for part or all of their lives in the ant colony. These parasitic visitors of ants include various insects, such as sacred beetles, ticks, flies and wasps.
Some of these may live in the ant nests and benefit from all social rights. In certain cases, the ants tolerate them, although they eat the larvae and eggs of their hosts. They are not only admitted into the nest, but their larvae are fed and raised as if they were the hosts'.

Well, why do the ants allow such aggression and how is it that these insects can stay in the nest of an ant which has had a superior defence system for years? Let us analyze the phases of this inexplicable phenomenon.

As you know, there is a complex communication system within the ant colony. Because of this system, the ants may distinguish members of their colonies from strangers. This distinguishing ability serves as "a social defence system". However, the visitors we mention above manage to get into the ant nests by various techniques. This shows that they have somehow solved the communication and distinguishing ciphers of the ants. In other words, they have the ability to talk ant language by mechanical and chemical methods.



Mimicry
There is a typical movement that an ant makes when it meets another ant. It touches the other ant lightly with its antenna and checks its pheromones. Then, both ants go on their way. It is known that they do this to identify each other and to protect themselves from alien creatures.
Worker ants do the same thing when they meet insects living in their nests. Sometimes they realize that the other creature is someone different and throw it out of the nest. Yet sometimes they treat the other insect as if it were an ant. This acceptance takes place due to chemical mimicry by the said insects.

It has been conclusively accepted that insects achieve this mimicry totally by chemicals, because ants have thrown out insects very similar to them physically when they found them different chemically. Yet certain parasites that have no resemblance to ants at all have been accepted as if they were members of the ant nest.44 It is very difficult to explain how such insect species learn to imitate the chemical characteristics of the ants. Such a thing can only be explained by these pheromones being added to these insects by design. An insect could not solve a chemical reaction, even if it lived for millions of years. Therefore, it must have acquired such characteristics by the conscious design of the Creator.



Hydrocarbon-Producing Insect and Fire Ants
The scarabaeid beetle, which is an insect species, and fire ants are able to live together, because the hydrocarbons they are coated with are identical. It is quite astonishing that a harmonious relationship exists between these two living beings, despite the fact that the beetles prey on the ants. Then how can this harmony be explained?
These beetles are coated with a series of hydrocarbons identical to those of one of their fire ant hosts. They also possess a second set of high-molecular-weight hydrocarbons peculiar to themselves. When their adults are isolated from the ant hosts, they lose the hydrocarbons they share with their hosts but retain their own, heavier hydrocarbons. When subsequently introduced into colonies of a second fire ant host species, this time they acquire the hydrocarbons of this ant host species.45

When the beetle first enters the nest of the fire ants, it depends on its heavily armored exoskeleton and tries to protect itself by pretending that it is dead. In a few days, after enough hydrocarbons are absorbed by the beetle, it gains full acceptance into the ant society.46

How can an insect of this species imitate any odor and secrete it in its own body? How does it know that by producing this odor it will be able to fool the ants into admitting it to their nest? Can a bug achieve all this on its own?

Of course not. Getting to know the ants by their chemical and physical characteristics is just not something that a bug can do on its own. It would be quite absurd to say that these bugs have gone through evolution by living with the ants for a long time and eventually developed the ability to produce the odor of the ants chemically. No mutation or coincidence can lead to the development of such a complex characteristic. The only possible conclusion is the existence of a Creator, Who has given powers of recognition and mimicry to this bug. The One Who makes it possible for ants and bugs to exist in harmony together and Who prevents their acting in a hostile manner towards each other, is Allah, the Creator of the two animal species.



Visitors of Army Ants
There are mites that live on the bodies of army ants. One of these mite species feeds on the blood taken from the terminal membranous lobe of the hind part of the ant they live on, or the fatty secretions on the bodies of their hosts. Sometimes these mites live on the tip of the rear leg of the ant and, at times, they allow their whole bodies to be used by the host ant as a substitute for the terminal segment of the foot.
As explained before, army ants form clusters by hooking their tarsal claws over the legs of other workers when they form temporary nests. In small laboratory nests, it has been observed that when a worker hooked the leg with the mite onto the nest or another worker, the hind legs of the mite usually served in place of the ant's tarsal claws. These mites, with their holdfast mechanisms such as teeth on their enlarged dorsa, have been equipped with appropriate posterior formations that adapt the mites to specific regions of the hosts' bodies.47

It is impossible that these two creatures who are complementary to each other, have found each other among thousands of species living in nature only by a lucky chance. The probability of these two species – which depend on each other for survival – having met one day, having seen that their bodies were suitable for co-existence and having decided on symbiosis is zero. Therefore, this perfect harmony is likewise just another one of the details showing perfect creation by Allah. Yet these small details are too valuable to pass by. These examples, of which we may witness thousands or millions every day, have been created so that man may see the infinite power, the knowledge and the fine art of Allah.



Smart Fly Larva
The bodies of the ants form a very suitable location for parasitic beings. Therefore many species of parasites choose as their homes the bodies of ants. The Strongygaster globula, which is a type of fly, deserves special mention.
The larvae of this fly develop as endoparasites inside the gaster of colony-founding queen. The behaviour of the infected queen is not noticeably affected apart, except that they cease to lay eggs. When the last-instar larva of the parasite leaves the body of the host, it quickly pupates and is groomed and tended by the host ants as if it were a member of the ants' own brood. Yet, during the flying phase, this friendly attitude is abandoned and the fly is forced to leave the nest and the queen ant dies after the parasites leave the nest.48


In these pictures, six different parasite species that live on the army ants are seen. These parasites have settled on the ants in different symbiotic adaptations.

(1) The parasite on the top feeds on the body fluids of the ant on which it inhabits.

(2) The second parasite is a type of mite and lives on the tip of the foot of its host.

(3) This interesting parasite species deceives the ants and feeds on their larvae.

(4) This species spends most of its time on the worker ants.

(5) It has chosen the tip of the ant's chin as its home.

(6) This parasite species has settled in the antenna root of the ant.

The settling of fly larvae on the body of the ant, and its living on it, is truly an exceptional situation. It is impossible for a newly born creature to have chosen the body of a queen ant as a home for itself. The choosing by the mother fly of such a location to lay her eggs can be possible only if she has a prior and thorough knowledge of the body and life style of the ant. Because in its own habitat, there are hundreds of different living species that it may leave its eggs on. The fly, which is attentive towards its babies, identifies the most suitable one and for its home, selects the queen ant. However, it is impossible for her to anticipate that her eggs will grow here under protection and that the ants will in fact take care of them. Because a fly is a totally different creature from an ant and it is impossible for it to know anything about the ant.

Then we can say that this correct decision made by the fly is not the result of "foreseeing the future" by this small animal, but a program within it, in other words, a given inspiration. The One Who places the larva in the most appropriate living area is Allah, Who is totally sovereign over the fly and the ant and has infinite knowledge of them, because He is the Creator, Owner and Sovereign of all living beings.



Secret of Blue Butterflies
In 1979, the large blue butterfly died out from its last breeding sites in England. Researchers who studied were not able to find out for a long time why the butterfly disappeared as there seemed to be plenty of the right habitat (rough grassland), with lots of the wild thyme plants on which the butterfly lays its eggs. Actually, the secret was hidden in the amazing life cycle of the butterfly.

In the picture on the left we see the large blue butterfly after leaving the ant nest. The picture on the right shows the blue butterfly caterpillar before meeting the ants

In the picture on the right, the mimicing caterpillar is taken by the ant to its own nest. The picture on the left shows the blue butterfly caterpillar living among the larvae in the ant nest


After the caterpillars hatch, they feed on thyme for about three weeks. Then they drop to the ground and give out a liquid that is attractive to red ants. When a red ant appears, the caterpillar rears up and swells the skin behind its head, tricking the ant into thinking it is one of its own grubs. The ant carries the caterpillar back to its nest, and it lives in the nest for almost a year, feeding on the ant grubs and spending the winter in hibernation. In spring, it makes a silk cocoon. While inside the cocoon, it slowly changes into an adult butterfly, before finally leaving the nest in midsummer.

The discovery of this parasitism has eliminated the shroud of secrecy over the extinction of the butterfly species. Due to an ecological change in the region, the red ants had moved away and the caterpillars that hatched there were killed by other ant species, which were not fooled by them.49

Now, the questions to be answered are the following: Could this co-existence have been formed by luck? How does the butterfly – as a caterpillar, which is not even an adult butterfly yet – know how to fool an ant? How have the organs come into being which make it possible for it to look like an ant when inflating its back? Since evolutionists do not accept conscious creation, they would argue that these organs have emerged by coincidence. Yet no coincidence can result in such a perfect likeness. It is impossible for this similarity to have formed in time in stages, because a caterpillar which has not yet acquired this likeness would be hunted down by the ants and would not be able to survive. Since it is impossible for the caterpillar to give shape to itself consciously, the only answer is that this animal was given its shape and made to resemble the ant by a Creating Will, that is, Allah.



Parasites that are Fed from the Mouth of the Ant
A type of parasite beetle called Dinarda, patrols through the peripheral nest chambers, where they feed on arthropod prey brought in by the host ants. It also taps into the liquid flow of its hosts. This parasite wanders around the peripheral chambers of the nest where the newly returning foragers and nest workers share food. Its tactic is to furtively touch the labium of an ant, causing the ant to regurgitate a small droplet of food. Actually, by this feeding method, it places itself in enormous danger, because once the ant realizes that the parasite is a stranger, it is going to assume the attack position. Yet the parasite has taken its precautions against such circumstances. When it sees that the ant is getting ready to attack, it raises its abdomen and offers the ant the appeasement secretions at the abdominal tip. The attack ceases as soon as the ant licks the abdominal tip, and the parasite makes its escape during this brief interlude.50



Smart Immigrants
Some insect species (Atemeles) emigrate from the ant nest (Formica) where they have been raised during the summer, to the nests of another ant genus (Myrmica). After wintering there, they return to their original nest to breed in the springtime. There is of course a reason for these moves: In the Formica nests, the immature stages disappear during the winter, and consequently social food flow is reduced. In contrast, the Myrmica colony maintains brood throughout the winter and high-grade food sources are available for the Atemeles.51

In the picture on the left, we see the food exchange between a bug and an ant.

Above, the bug touches the ant with its antennae. In the middle, the bug taps the ant's mouth with its forelegs.

At the bottom, the ant presents a drop of liquid food to the mimicing bug
The Atameles face a major problem in finding their way from one host species to another. The Formica nests normally occur in woodland and the Myrmica nests are found in grassland around the woods. The Atameles that leave the Formica nest have discovered a very important method of finding their way: they orient towards light and reach the relatively open Myrmica habitat. Yet when they arrive there, another problem awaits them. They have to distinguish the Myrmica ants from the other species present and locate their nests. Research has revealed that the migrants identify the Myrmica nests innately by specific odors.52 In short, these immigrants have the capacity to distinguish between the odors of ant colonies, apart from their skill in finding their direction by the aid of light.

These migrants who change nests twice a year are very interesting, because they are accepted by both ant species and are able to adapt to the nest environment immediately. Wasmann, who has been doing research on ants for many years, believes that this species is the most advanced cohabitant with its still unsolved adaptation method. They have a very astonishing feature that they use in getting themselves admitted to the nest they are migrating to. These migrants have appeasement glands, the secretions of which are immediately licked up by the ant and suppress aggressive behaviour. This chemical is so strong that it was observed that the ants treat the parasite a lot more "gently" when they spurt this secretion on to their host ants.53




In the drawing above, an Atemeles bug has itself carried to the ant nest by way of a special substance it gives out

Such conscious activities of migrant bugs set one to thinking. As this bug knows when to move to which nest, it must know ants in every way. Then how has this migration adventure started? First of all, it must choose among many species of insects and decide to cohabit in an ant nest. After making this tough selection among hundreds of species of insects, it must pick the one most suitable for it among 8800 ant species and then realize that the food supply of the selected ants is decreasing during winter. Then after noticing this, it must discover the nest where food is abundant in winter. The creature who has to make all these decisions is an insect such as we will probably never come across in our entire lives. It is quite illogical to expect an insect to make such decisions.

Still, even if we believe that this system has developed in such a way, the questions we face do not come to an end. How does this insect arrive at the nest while moving from one nest to the other? When it's very difficult to find the way in the forest even for an intelligent person, how can a migrant insect which is one thousandth the size of a man contrive to find an ant hill in a huge forest?

The answer, "by orienting toward light" does not really provide any explanation, because light may be coming from at least 2-3 different fronts. There are areas many square metres wide, where it arrives by orienting toward light, before the nest it seeks may be found. (Let us not forget that for a creature the size of an insect, an area measured in square metres is the same as several square kilometres for us). Here, the odor recognition process starts, but that too is quite astonishing, because it is very difficult to distinguish a single odor from all the others in a forest where hundreds of ant colonies live and where also thousands of different odors other than those of the ants exist. Moreover, it is interesting that an insect, which spends a whole summer somewhere else, can keep this odor in its memory.

Lastly, let us think about the following: even if we pick up this insect and put it in front of the entry to the suitable ant nest ourselves, it will be very difficult for it to live in it because, as we know, ants also have very strong recognition ability. As they do not accept even an ant which does not belong to their colony, they will of course treat this insect as hostile and will throw it out of the nest. However, things do not turn out like this and the insect is treated quite hospitably. It is argued that this is because of the positive effect of a chemical which it gives out from its body. Then how does the migrant insect know that it can influence the ants with this substance and understand that it can reverse this hostile behaviour? Has it succeeded in producing the ideal substance by deciding to manufacture it itself?

Of course, it is impossible to answer these questions positively. There is an obvious picture that one can see. The said insect is doing things which require serious intelligence and a sense of judgement. Yet, it would be absurd to think of the ability to think and to judge in such a creature as does not even have a brain. We have to admit that the source of intelligence in the things the insect does is another power "outside" the animal.

Evolutionists have produced the phrase intuition to overcome this dead end that they are facing, and they have argued that animal behaviour is the result of certain motives of unknown source. Yet this phrase is just whitewashing and does not change anything. The picture is still clear: There are motives which dominate the animal that are the result of an intelligent programming. Since there is no intelligent programming by the animal itself, the source of such motives must be another power ruling the animal. This power belongs to Him Who is not seen, but rules over the visible world with supreme wisdom and reflects such knowledge in living beings, like insects, which are themselves not endowed with consciousness.



Insect that Feigns Death
Ant nests provide a high concentration of food resources, a refuge from predators and severe climatic change for a beetle genus that lives in the deserts of the southwestern USA and Mexico. Once these beetles manage to integrate themselves into an ant society, they directly go to a brooding room and feed on ant larvae.
These have developed various techniques to get inside an ant nest. Some species march directly through the nest entrance, or burrow through thatch piles into the interior. The beetles are very well protected by their heavily sclerotized cuticle that the ants are unable to kill them. They can only attack in unison and throw them out.

Unsuccessful bugs never give up. This time they feign death when approached by ants, so that they are mistaken for prey items and gain access to the nest. To fool the ants, these bugs expertly feign death by retracting their antennae and sticking out their legs.54

Once they reach the egg chambers, the ants for some reason ignore these beetles. Research has shown that while these bugs are feed on ant brood, trichome secretions secreted by the beetle distract workers, reduce aggression, and prevent workers from evacuating brood.55

Also these "intelligent" beetles leave their own larvae in the ant nest. Their larvae develop within piles of vegetable matter. Although they lack morphological adaptations for defense from their hosts, they are ignored by ant workers and, even if they are attacked by highly excited ants, they defend themselves against the ants and escape maneuvers.56



Fly Larvae That Know Ants
We are going to see a striking and perfect example of creation below: the fly larvae that can do mimicry.

The larvae of syrphid flies (Microdon) overwinter deep within the ant nest and, in spring, they move to the surface of the nest to pupate. In the course of research, the larvae were observed to disappear immediately upon hatching and they were thought to be dead, with a single remaining larva clinging to the outer surface of an ant cocoon. The magnification revealed the larva becoming rounder and rounder, as if it were exerting pressure to distort its shape. Suddenly, it was simply gone. The larva had inserted its mouth hooks into the silken cocoon and created a hole large enough to allow it to enter. The disappearing larvae were simply inside the cocoons, feeding on the ant pupae and molting into the next larval stage. Microdon larvae, at later stages, folded themselves lengthwise until they were practically indistinguishable from ant cocoons. After this transformation, agitated worker ants arrived, seized the impostor young, and carried them to the safe depths of the nest.57

This was an unusual case of mimicry. The ants perceived the fly larvae to be ant cocoons. During research, it was noticed that the chemistry of the outer, hard cuticle of the larval flies and that of larval ants matched almost perfectly. In other words, fly larvae were able to imitate ant cocoons chemically as well.

Chemical analysis confirmed that this was a case of true chemical mimicry. Then how could the Microdon larvae employ this mimicry?

On the underside of the larvae are elaborate protuberances, the function of which was not known. It is now suspected that they contain glands or glandular openings for secreting the chemicals that the larvae use to mimic their hosts.58

Then, how can a being who does not even know the meaning of "chemistry" perform such an impersonation? And only the larvae of Microdon flies have such a defence system, never the adults. Since this ability of impersonation is not known in adult flies, it is not something which can be thought out. This means that the larvae have this ability from birth.

No coincidence can implant a chemical order in the body of a larva that will cause it to impersonate ants. The only conclusion that may be derived from this event is that the larvae are born into this world already equipped with this feature.



Woodman Ants and Aphids
Up until now, what you have read about ants has given you a general idea about the ant world. But this is just the beginning, because there are many different species in the world of ants equipped with characteristics we do not know about. One of them is the "milkman ant" which is also known as the woodman ant.
The woodman ants in question obtain milk from leaves via aphids. This cooperation between ants and aphids is one of the most interesting relationships in the whole world of insects.

Aphids which are placed on the leaves by ants feed on the phloem sap of plants. The plant sap that enters the body of the aphid is converted into the substance called "honeydew". The ants, which like honeydew, have found a way for aphids to give this food to them. A hungry ant approaches the aphid and starts brushing its abdomen with its feelers and antennae. The aphid likes this very much and emits a droplet of honeydew and gives it to the ant. In return, the ants look after their aphids very well.59

In the autumn, the ants pick up the aphid eggs and keep them in their nest until they hatch. Later on, they place the young aphids on the roots of various plants, so that they suck the sap and provide milk to the milkman ants.














"Animal Breeder" Ants. Ants, in addition to all their interesting skills, also do "animal breeding". As seen in these pictures, ants make a "flock" for themselves from aphids and use this "flock" to obtain food. In return, they look after their "flock" very well, keeping them by their side, and protecting them against their enemies. The "animal breeding" of ants is, no doubt, an interesting example of symbiosis observed in the world of insects.



At this point the question would be: When there are thousands of living beings in the world, how do the milkman ants know of this characteristic of the aphids? How can they select them from among all the other creatures?
It is, of course, impossible to evaluate as a chain of accidents the fluid that comes out of the aphid being exactly what the ant needs and the ant's knowing what the aphid would like and its patting it against the food it is going to receive. Once again, there is a designed pairing, a great harmony and therefore an obvious creation.



Plants that Cohabit With Ants
The East Indian pitcher plant, Nepenths Bicalcarata, harbors ant colonies in the hollow stem of the same pitcher-shaped leaf by which it captures and digests other kinds of insects. Yet the ants are free to roam over this carnivorous plant, gathering insects and other food items of their own. The ants and the plant are engaged in a trade-off of mutual benefit. The ants risk being eaten by the plant, but they get a home. The plant surrenders some tissue space and insect prey to the ants and, in return, gains protection from herbivores.60



On the left we see a pitcher plant which is a kind of "insect trap". Yet, this pitcher plant does not serve as a trap for certain insects. For instance, the ant shown on the right is able to live together with the pitcher plant. The plant is disregarding the existence of the ant in an inexplicable fashion.



This example defines the outlines of symbiosis between plants and ants. The anatomies and physiological structures of the ants and their host plant have been designed to provide this mutual relationship between them. Although defenders of evolution say that these interspecies relationships have gradually grown over millions of years, it is obvious that any claim that two such creatures as have no intelligence could agree to arrange a mutually beneficial system is untenable.

Then what is it that causes the ants to live on plants?

The tendency of the ants to live on plants is the result of sugar-producing organs of the plant called "extrafloral nectaries". When active, nectaries attract worker ants, who tend to defend them from other insects. There is some evidence that the plants time their secretions in a way that enhances the protective role of the nectaries. For instance, the nectaries of the black cherry tree are most active during the first three weeks after budbreak. It is certainly not a coincidence that the same three-week period is the only time that eastern tent caterpillars which are the major defoliators of the black cherry, are small enough to be captured and killed by the ants.61

To see how obviously this is evidence of creation, one needs nothing other than normal common sense. It is, of course, impossible to accept that the tree has calculated the period in which it is subject to the most harm and has decided that the best way to protect itself during this period would be to attract ants and that, to this end, it has produced a structural change in its own chemistry. The tree has no brain. Therefore, it can neither think, calculate, nor adjust its own chemicals. To think that this rational procedure is a characteristic acquired as a result of coincidence – which is the logic of evolution – is totally absurd. In a very obvious way, the tree is doing something which is the result of intelligence and knowledge.

Therefore, the only conclusion that may be reached here is that this feature of the tree has been formed by the will which has created the tree. It is obvious from the arrangements He has made that He is not only sovereign over the tree but also over the ants and caterpillars. If research is taken beyond this point, it is observable that, in fact, He dominates the whole of nature and has organized each component of nature separately and in harmony, thus founding the perfect system that we call "ecological balance". We can advance further and go into the domains of geology and astronomy. Everywhere we are going to face the same situation, with countless systems that function in harmony within a perfect order. These systems all indicate the existence of an organizer. Yet, none of the entities making up the systems are themselves organizers.

"Is then He Who creates like one who does not create? Will you not take heed?" (Surat an-Nahl:17)

Then that organizer must be a Will Who is aware of and sovereign over the whole universe. The Qur'an describes Him as follows:

He is Allah, the Creator, the Maker, the Giver of Forms. To Him belong the Most Beautiful Names: Everything in the heavens and earth glorifies Him. He is the Almighty, the All-Wise. (Surat Al-Hashr: 24)



The Acacia Tree and Ants
Acacia trees grow throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world and are protected by thorns. An ant species that lives on African acacias gnaws an entry hole in the walls of the thorns and lives permanently inside the acacia tree. Each colony of ants inhabits the thorns on one or more trees and feeds on the nectars of the acacia leaves. These colonies also eat the caterpillars and other organisms they find on the tree.


The symbiosis between acacias and ants is perhaps one of the most interesting in the plant and insect world


The nectar of the acacia trunk is very rich in oils and proteins. Thomas Belt, who first described these bodies, noted that their only apparent function was to nourish the ants. Ants, which live on these trees, obtain sugars from the nectaries and feed them to their larvae.62
What is it that the tree expects from the ants in return for its produce?

The worker ants, which swarm over the surface of the plant, are very aggressive toward other insects and, indeed, towards animals of all sizes. When their tree is brushed by an animal, they swarm out and attack at once, inflicting painfully burning bites. Moreover, other plants sprouting within as much as a meter of occupied acacias are chewed and mauled, and their bark is girdled. Twigs and branches of other trees that touch an occupied acacia are similarly destroyed.63

It has been shown that acacia trees which have no ants are more vulnerable to attack by their insect herbivores. In an experiment, it was observed that alien plants that sprouted within a radius of 40 centimeters of the occupied acacia trunks were chewed and mauled by the ants until they died. Ants even attacked other plants whose leaves or branches touched the canopy of the acacia. Up to one-fourth of the entire ant population were active on the surfaces of the control plants, day and night, constantly patrolling and cleaning them. The conclusion researchers have arrived at is as follows: The ants are "kept by the acacia as a standing army".64 Since the awareness which would promote such a negotiation is not within the capability of either side, it must be accepted that this balance must have been established by the will of Allah Who created both parties to the agreement.



Ant Hotels

In some plant species, there are some plant structures called "domatia" in biological terminology. These serve no evident purpose other than to shelter ant colonies. They have holes or thin windows of tissue through which ants can conveniently enter and leave. Species with domatia usually also manufacture food bodies, which are unique structures with no known function other than the feeding of ants. The only function of "food bodies" is just feeding of ants. They have no apparent benefit for the plant.65 In short, domatias are very special structures that are formed so that the ants may maintain their lives. Their temperature and humidity are ideally balanced to suit the ants' requirements. Ants live comfortably in these special places prepared just for them, almost as men do in quality hotels.




On the left, an ant is seen on a plant which is an extremely suitable shelter for itself. The holes on the ant serve as "doors" for the ants.



It is not possible to claim that these structures materialize by luck, that they produce food for ants by coincidence and that they take on need-based forms.
Ant-plant relationships are just one of the proofs of the incredible equilibrium created by a sole Creator on this earth. Furthermore, this relationship is mutual. The services ants provide against the services of the plants are very important factors in the plants of the world being so efficient. Ants enrich the earth in carbon by cultivating it, adding nutrition to it by their waste and excretion, and keeping the ambient temperature and humidity at an appropriate level. Therefore, plant species near ant nests are better off than those in other areas.



Ant Plant and Nitrogen Source Ant
An ant species (Philidris) and its host plant (Dischidia major) produce a very complex set of chemicals all throughout their lives.
This plant has no roots that go underground. Therefore, it winds along other plants to get support. It has a very interesting method for increasing its carbon and nitrogen gain.

Ants have a storage area in this plant where they raise their young and hide organic residues (dead ants, insect pieces, etc.) called "ant leaf". The plant uses these residues as a source of nitrogen. Also, the interior surfaces of the leaf spaces absorb the carbon dioxide given out by the ant, thus reducing dehydration from the pores.66 Prevention of dehydration is very important for these ant plants that grow in tropical climates, because they can never reach the water in the soil, since they have no roots. Thus, ants provide for two important needs of the plant in return for its providing shelter for them.














Above is a plant that is fed by its "fenants". This plant also serves as a "home" for the ants.

Ants That Feed Their Hosts
Certain ants feed their host plants. Just such a relationship has been documented in the genera Hydnophytum and Myrmecodia. The workers of Myrmecodia discard the remains of prey in the cavities lined with absorptive tissues, while sequestering their own brood in special chambers lined with tough, nonabsorptive cells. Ants live in these chambers but make an interesting differentiation between them. The absorptive surfaces are dotted with small lenticular warts. Each of the two zones serves a separate function, namely the feeding of the plant and the housing of the ant brood.

Scientists have carried out a very interesting test on this subject. Using radioactive tracers, they demonstrated that this differentiation is indeed the case. The pseudobulbs absorbed phosphate, sulfate, and methionine from waste material deposited by the worker ants, as well as various breakdown products of decomposing Drosophila larvae. Most of the activity was concentrated in the warted areas. In short, the ants feed the plants.67



Piper Plant ad Brown Ant
The relationship between the piper plant and the ants is perhaps the most interesting of all these we have looked at so far. The ant plant called piper (treelets in the black pepper family) grows in the shade of the tropical forest of Central America. It is a plant that provides both food and shelter for brown ants (Pheidole Bicornis). By the time young Piper trees have just two or three full-sized leaves, one of the leaf bases - hollow swellings between the branch and the leaf itself – usually contains a Pheidole queen. The queen colonizes a Piper sapling by chewing an entrance hole and laying eggs inside the leaf base. When her eggs first hatch into larvae, she and the young occupy one of the leaf bases, but as the colony grows, the worker ants advance gradually throughout the stem pith tissue, and the entire plant becomes a domicile.68
This plant is also a source of food for the ants. The inside surface of the expanded leaf bases produces for them single-celled food bodies. Ants pluck these oil-and protein-rich morsels from the walls and feed them to their larvae.69

These rich foods that the ants will perhaps never find elsewhere, are presented to them by the piper. These ants move towards the pipers that will provide them with the best care, shelter and food each year and build their nests in the parts of the plant most suitable for them.

"Smart" Piper
The genus Piper that serves as a food source has another very interesting feature. In other plant species, the food bodies grow spontaneously, whereas piper plants do this only when the plant is occupied by ants. Scientists have noticed that food-body production declines precipitously when the brown ants (Pheidoles) are removed, and it commences again when the ants are restored.70

Mutual Assistance
What the piper plant does is not a one-sided sacrifice because, during this mutual living process, the ant also produces nutritional material for its host.
When the ant lump in the trunk of the plant decays, it is taken inside the inner soft tissue of the plant as hydrous ammonia. This fluid is very beneficial for the plant. It increases its efficiency. As an addition, the breathing ant colony members increase the carbon dioxide concentration of the plant and ensure its being healthier.

Some research has been done to understand if piper ants provide food for their plants and it has been proven that food-seeking Pheidole ants have brought in certain particles like spores, weed pieces and moth scales. Ants keep these foods that they carry in in small sacks in which they keep larvae, and the plant takes in the required minerals from these foods.



Strategy Expert, Pheidole
Pheidole ants are quite peaceful. They move slowly. They neither attack, nor bite. Yet these ants use a shrewd strategy to protect themselves and their hosts, the Piper plants.
Such ants perform their service by removing the eggs and early developmental stages of the herbivores instead of facing down the adults. They patrol new leaves of the plant, which are the most susceptible to insect damage. Then, in an experiment, termite eggs were placed on Piper bushes, the ants discovered more than 75 percent and dropped them off the plants within an hour. Pheidole chew through or push aside alien vines from their host plants, and also bring nutrients to the plant cavities as part of their nest material. 71



Invader Aphid
Another creature who harms the piper is the invader wheat aphid (Ambates melanobs). The wheat aphid attacks the majority of plants without ants and kills them by piercing the trunk of the plant through to the inside. But these micro invaders cannot be very successful if the plant has ant guards. Ants attack the defenceless soft built wheat aphid larvae as soon as they start tunnelling into the inner part of the trunk. Strategist ants who defend the plant, they live on against all kinds of invasions and also protect the ecological balance with this feature of theirs.
The plant and ants co-existing in such harmony cannot be explained by coincidences. The picture we build up from the information given right throughout this entire chapter shows us species that are different from each other but who have been created for full cooperation.

At the beginning of this chapter, we have given a similar example of such harmony: The relationship between a key and the lock it opened. There was a single explanation for the harmony between these two separate objects. The lock and the key were both made by the same master, that is, they were consciously designed. In the examples of cooperation we meet in nature, the same logic applies. The ant and the plant cooperate because they are the products of conscious design. Neither is the ant dominant over the plant, nor is the reverse true. Incapable of forming ideas, they are both simply acting under the inspiration of their Creator, and thus are able to maintain a reciprocity that allows them to pursue their lives on earth.

The task for people, then, is to see this conscious creation and recognize its owner. Yet, many do not think about this, nor do they care. The following verses state in the best way possible this perfect creation by Allah and the blindness of people towards it:

Mankind! An example has been made, so listen to it carefully. Those whom you call besides Allah are not even able to create a single fly, even if they were to join together to do it. And if a fly steals something from them, they cannot get it back. How feeble are both the seeker and the sought! They do not measure Allah with His true measure. Allah is All-Strong, Almighty.(Surat al-Hajj: 73-74)


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Chapter 5

Defence And War Tactics



In the previous chapters we have seen that the social order of ants is highly advanced. These hardworking, productive and sacrificing beings have yet another feature: They defend themselves very successfully against enemies and they use very interesting techniques to fight for the survival of the colony.

The small size of the ant at first gives the impression that they are defenceless. One cannot even imagine that these creatures, which can be crushed easily by stepping on them, can achieve tasks that seem far beyond their capacities. Yet, Allah within the unique ecological order He has created on earth has designated their place and has equipped them with the necessary defence mechanisms.

By Allah's inspiration ants use seemingly incredible tactics and strategies to defend their colonies and to protect themselves against the enemies that they meet during the search for food. While developing hunting strategies, they fight not to become a prey to others. One battle of this type is the one between the ant colonies.



War Between Colonies
One of the most important reasons for inter-colonial wars is the difficulty in sharing food resources. In such wars, the ant species that first finds the food source usually wins. This is because the discovering ants surround the food, thus preventing others from getting at pieces of the food. They also leave their odors around, so that members of the following colony cannot show the way by odor trails.
While some of the workers that first reach the food source maintain the blockade operation, another group does not join the war immediately, preferring to return home, and leaving odor trails. When they arrive home, they warn their nestmates by moving their bodies back and forth, and touching the antennae of the other ants with their own antennae. With this smart tactic, reinforcements are gathered for the fighting workers.

Apart from ordinary sieges during the day, the ants become so aggressive during a famine that they may destroy each other completely. One colony may destroy another completely within 10-14 days.
Another cause of war is one colony entering the territory of another. Ants mark their territories with a pheromone. When another colony comes to the area, it notices this pheromone and normally does not settle here. But if it does, this will be a cause of war.

In such situations, for instance, weaver ants run to the nearest leaf while leaving a secretion behind. When they find their nestmates, they tell them about the fight by their movements. Their mates start moving upon this invitation and travel towards the war zone following the workers. In half an hour, more than one hundred ants reach the arena.

In short, ant colonies lead a sophisticated existence with their natural boundaries, security and information systems against danger and armies that are strong enough to defend the whole colony. To found such a system and to have the colony members adopt the system, an intelligent and conscious will and education are needed. Yet, there is no apparent planner and no apparent education. The system has been designed by an invisible will and has been bestowed upon all ants when they first arrive on earth. In other words, Allah Who has created the ants has chosen a complex defence system for them and has inspired in the ants the program needed for performance of this system.

Now let us see the details of this system, which is an open system of creation.



Defence Tactics
In wars among different colonies, there are certain tactics resorted to by ants. They walk about with legs stretched out in a stiltlike posture while lifting their heads and abdomens and occasionally inflating their abdomens to a slight degree. The total effect is to make each ant appear larger than it really is.72

On the right and left are seen ants that try to seem taller and bigger than they actually are.


Another defence tactic they use is "pacifying the enemy". An ant species (S. Invoila) gives out a venom during a fight by vibrating its belly and opening up its mandible slowly. Its enemies, who try to protect themselves from the venom open their mandibles and drop some sugar water onto the open mandible of the venomous ant. The reason is that the venomous ant's aggression decreases when it has access to food. In short, the object is to draw the attention of the other side somewhere else and pacify it.
Tactics, of course, are not limited to these. The ants use many more sophisticated techniques in the war zones with the physical features they have and the intelligence that has been inspired in them.



Acid Producing Ants
Another very important defence technique of ants is their producing in the venom sacs in their bodies venom or formic acid as required. They use the venom they produce in a very successful way against their enemies. They can even have an effect on human beings with their venom. When they sting, they cause allergy shocks in certain people. Formic acid is, too, used effectively in chasing away the enemy.
If we accept evolution, we then have to admit that primitive ants did not start out with a poisoning system in their bodies, it having been formed somehow later on through the process of evolution. Yet this is a hypothesis against logic because, for the poisoning system to work, both the venom itself and the organ to keep it in have to be formed. It is necessary for this organ to have an insulated structure to prevent the dispersal of the venom to other parts of the body. Furthermore, an insulated pipe that extends from this organ to the mouth of the ant must exist. But this is not all. A muscle system or a mechanical arrangement has to exist which will allow this venom to be spurted on to the enemy (In fact, a separate gland is needed also to "lubricate" that area for the rotation of the abdominal section from which the venom is squirted )

These organs could not have developed gradually through the process of evolution because, if even one piece were lacking, this would render the system unworkable and cause the ant's death. Therefore there is just one explanation: The "chemical defence system" in question must have been in place from the moment the ants came into existence. This in turn proves that a conscious design also exists and its other name is "Creation".

Another question to which evolutionists cannot find the answer is how – apart from their using this venom without any harm coming to themselves - they have learned to produce such a poison in their bodies (in venom sacks). In fact, the answer is very clear and obvious: Like all creatures in the universe, these ants with their perfect systems have been created all at the one time. The One Who has created the venom production centre in their bodies and Who has inspired them to use it in the most logical manner is Allah, the Creator of the worlds.



Ants Who Can Count
How is a simple insect able to assess the strength of the enemy? Interestingly enough, this is realized by the mathematical knowledge of the ant.
There are several ways the ant workers might indirectly assess the enemy strength. One of them is that they can "count heads" while shifting from one combatant to another. If their nestmates outnumber the enemy – say three to one – they will be subjectively aware of the imbalance in their favor and more inclined to press forward. If the reverse, they will retreat. A second method is to poll the enemy. If a high percentage of the alien workers encountered are majors, the other colony is probably large, because majors are produced in high numbers only when colonies approach maturity.73



Walking Bombs

The ultimate sacrifice in public service is to destroy enemies by committing suicide in defense of the colony. Many kinds of ants are prepared to assume this kamikaze role in one way or another, but none more dramatically than workers of a species of Camponotus of the saundersi group living in the rain forests of Malaysia.

Discovered in 1970 by two entomologists, these ants are anatomically and behaviorally programmed to be walking bombs. Two huge glands, filled with toxic secretions, run from the bases of the mandibles all the way to the posterior tip of the body. When the ants are pressed hard during combat, either by enemy ants or by an attacking predator, they contract their abdominal muscles violently, bursting open the body wall and spraying the secretions onto the foe.74

Such a serious sacrifice by the ants cannot, of course, be explained by either natural selection or by the "evolutionist socialization process". As emphasized many times before, the creature which carries out this very important sacrifice is not a man of a certain intelligence, education, sense and conscience, but an ant. Even if we think that ants may have gone through some physical change – there are ant fossils nevertheless that have remained unchanged for 80 million years – it is quite obvious that physical changes alone would not equip it with such features. No mutation experienced by a living being can cause its sudden transformation into a thinking, judging, feeling and sensing individual.

Even if we assumed that there had been an ant one day who decided to sacrifice itself to put up such a defence, it would of course be impossible for it to load this idea into its genes and transmit it to other ants.



Slave maker Ants

The relationship between (Formica Subintegra), the parasitic ant and its slave (Formica Subserica) is interesting because it indicates the effect of chemical signals on the social lives of ants. "Slavery" is one of the intelligent war tactics of ants and maybe the most interesting one.75

Sometimes, if the soldiers of a colony realize that they can easily crush another colony, they may start hunting for slaves. They invade the nest of the other colony, kill the queen and take as loot the nectar-filled "honey pots" – those ants that fill their bodies with nectar. The most important point is their stealing the larvae of the queen. These larvae later on turn into young ants which will become "slave ants." They will look after the growing children of the colony queen and will search for and store food for the dominant colony.

The most important feature of slave trading ants is to steal the larvae of the colony they fight, and to make these larvae "slaves" for their own colonies. On the left, an ant capturing the larva of the competitor colony is seen.
Slave maker ants do not steal only larvae from the competitor colony. Honey ants also steal the "honey pots" of the other colony and take them to their own nests.

When parasite ants attack another ant colony, the reason that the soldiers of the other colony cannot prevent the theft of their eggs and cocoons is a type of pheromone given out by the parasite ants. This pheromone is similar to a warning substance that exists in that colony and when it is secreted in large quantity by parasite ants, it results in the ants' running away instead of protecting their colonies.

As we know, there is a different pheromone secreted by each ant species. These pheromones are used for the designation of boundaries, the obtaining of information on the location and size of the enemy, as an attack command during war and as an alarm system.

Here there is a very interesting point. Parasite ants know the panic alarm of the enemy ant colony. They simulate this alarm and use it for a certain purpose. As a result, the enemy colony loses its present discipline because of the mimicry pheromone secreted by the parasite ant, and runs away in panic without resorting to its defence system. That is, parasite ants cause the collapse of the enemy defence system by using very smart tactics. A masterfully prepared war strategy has come into operation. Furthermore, parasite ants have had all the chemical production and information infrastructure necessary for the implementation of this strategy since birth – since the time of their creation.

Some ant species lead their lives by having their slaves do everything for them. The red Amazon ant (Polyergus) is an example. All Amazon ants are soldiers. They have large sharp mandibles made for war. They can neither gather food nor look after babies. These ants attack the nests of certain small-sized black ant species and steal their cocoons and larvae. Ants emerging from cocoons are carried home to take on the jobs of the Amazon ants and stay with the Amazon colony, even if their own nests are nearby. In fact, when Amazon ants move to their winter nests, most of the transport is ordinarily conducted by their slaves, thus they are able to emigrate very swiftly.76

Ants can defend themselves against even very large living beings due to their ability to leave traces. A good example of this is the ant's struggle with the dragon fly. Ants who spot the dragon fly gather together thanks to their tracing systems, then they attack and kill it. In another example, they are able by the same method to beat a caterpillar that attacks another member of the colony even if it is much larger in size than themselves.

It may seem normal for one living being to attack another or to fight with it for the purpose of defending its life, or for food. However, if a creature is acting together with others in its species while fighting the enemy, and if they communicate war tactics to each other, then we must inevitably focus on this subject.

To decide upon tactics, to fight accordingly with a certain order and discipline, and to use a communication system to protect such order and discipline, are all acts that need intelligence, planning and judgement. For instance, today's war strategies have been determined on the basis of the life-long experience of human beings. Army officers go through training in academies to learn such tactics. They also need specifically developed communication systems for the implementation of their strategies.

However, the soldiers that we talked about above, who determine the discipline and attack tactics with chemical communication systems, who attack the enemy together and who, if necessary, sacrifice themselves at times for other individuals of the army have not had any training and do not have any accumulation of information. These beings we are talking about are ants that are only a few milimetres long and do not have the ability to think.



Masters Of Camouflage
The secret of the ant species "Basiceros" was not solved until recently. Researchers had come across these only once and had never found any ant similar to them again. Therefore, they were thought to be a very rare species.
However, a researcher solved the secret of these ants in 1985. He found out that they are not a species that is rarely found at all. The researcher, named La Selva, who solved this secret, described the Basiceros ants as master illusionists, because they were able to become "invisible" whenever they wanted.

What was it that made them invisible?

The Basiceros species, unlike other ant species, are covered with two layers of hair with splintered ends. When they walk on the ground, all kinds of dust, earth and bits of straws, etc., stick on these hairs. Another difference between these and other ants is that they do not clean the dirt off their bodies very often. Therefore, as shown in the pictures, they display total harmony with the environment they are in. When looked at from outside, it is almost impossible to locate them. They only become a little visible when they start walking. Yet, even in this case, they take precautions to protect themselves from birds, lizards and even the human eye. They are the sluggish ants in the world and may be observed to stand perfectly still for minutes at a time when they are disturbed.77

The camouflage technique applied by this ant species is very striking, because it is impossible for an ant to have developed a defence system by determining all its physiological characteristics by itself. All these features (body covered with hair, not cleaning often unlike other ants and moving very slowly) must have been defined beforehand so that the ant came into this world already equipped with the characteristics discussed.

As a result, again, we are facing a great truth. This ant species has also been created by Allah with all its features designated beforehand, thus showing us His attribute of Creator.



In the pictures on the left and right, we see the masters of camouflage of the ant world. The bodies of these ants of the Basiceros species are covered with two layers of hair with splintered ends. Thus, it is impossible to locate them


Chapter 6

Reserving The Race


A large portion of an ant colony is made up of female ants. Male ants have a rather shorter life span. Their only task is to mate when they mature with a young queen. Male ants die a short while after they mate. All worker ants are female. In short, all ant communities are, in fact, a world of mothers and daughters.

Ants are a harmonious society regardless of their number. In ant colonies, it is possible to see every stage in the life of a society. The purpose in life for ants, who are bound to their colonies with great sacrifice is not individual. They are, all together, like a single body and their purpose is to keep that body alive. They do not think twice before electing death, if it is for the survival of the colony. The best example of this is what happens to the male ants after the nuptial flight.



Dying for Survival of the Race

The mating of ants looks almost like a ceremony. Most ants mate in the air. The males come earlier and wait for the young queen. When a female lands on the ground (the female also has wings before mating), 5-6 male ants start racing around the queen. When the female has obtained enough sperms, it sends out a certain vibration. The male understands this signal as meaning that the female is ready to detach. A short while after mating, the male ant dies.78

This type of sacrifice is in fact very hard to explain. The male ant taking the nuptial flight which will end in its death for the survival of its race is a type of behaviour that cannot be explained by the theory of evolution because, according to the fundamental logic of evolution, each living being only worries about the continuation of its own life. Yet, male ants have been fertilizing female ants for millions of years, knowing that at the end, death is inevitable.

The only truth that can explain this sacrifice is that the male ant acts under the inspiration of its Creator. Otherwise, it is impossible that a creature, which is alleged to go through the natural selection process, should preserve such sacrificial behaviour for millions of years. Judging by the basic principles of the theory of evolution, male ants would have to escape from this "death flight" one way or another, and this would mean the end of the ant species. Yet, currently, thousands of ant species still keep on living on earth with their colonies numbering hundreds of thousands. Not a single male ant has ever run away from this flight which means "the end" for it.



After the Nuptial Flight

After mating, the female ant looks for a suitable nest, and when she finds one, she enters it and promptly tears off her wings. Later on, she bars the entrance and stays without food and alone for several weeks. Then she lays her eggs. (During this time, she feeds on her wings). She feeds the larvae coming out first with her own saliva. This long-lasting and tough effort is another example of sacrifice, but in the remaining portion of her life, the queen will be fed by her colony.

Due to limited food, the first swarm is small. These are the first workers of the colony and take care of the following swarms continuing to make sacrifices in the same way. The new generation of ants that grows up under their exceptional care become larger, because they have better nutrition.



First Founders of Sperm Bank

As we mentioned before, the lives of male ants are not very long. They die anything from a few hours to a couple of days after the nuptial flight. Yet, it is very interesting that each male who has taken the nuptial flight, risking death, has left sperms for its offspring to be born years after it dies. Well, how are these sperms preserved alive and how are they able to produce new ants by fertilizing the eggs? Can the ants have developed a superior technology and formed a sperm bank?

Yes, each queen ant has a sperm bank in her body. After receiving the ejaculate from the male, the queen stores it in an oval bag located near the tip of her abdomen. In this organ, called the spermatheca, the individual sperm are physiologically inactivated, and they can remain in suspended animation for years. When at last the queen lets them back out into her reproductive tract, either one at a time or in small groups, they become agile again and ready to fertilize the egg passing down the tract from the ovaries.79 This means that the sperm bank which has come into use over the last 25 years through high technology, has been used by the ants since time immemorial.


After the nuptial flight, the queen looks for a suitable place to found her colony. When she finds a place like she wants, she first tears off her wings and starts forming her own colony by reproducing.

This mechanism of which, until 50 years ago, human beings had not the slightest inkling, has been used by ants for millions of years. Since the ants cannot go through stages man has gone through by setting up laboratories and having this mechanism placed in their bodies, they must have had this mechanism since the very beginning. If allegations are made to the contrary, many questions similar to the ones below shall have to be answered.

1. When the ants came into existence for the first time, did not the males die after the nuptial flight? If they did not, then why are they dying now? Did they think that it was more appropriate to be destroyed after the death flight as part of the survival of the fittest process?

2. Since male ants die right after the nuptial flight, would not the ant species have been extinct long time ago had it not been for the formation of the sperm storage required for the survival of their species?

3. If the sperm bank has existed since they first came into existence, then who has equipped their bodies with this mechanism?

These are just a few of the questions that must be answered by those who do not accept the supreme creation by the Creator. Thousands more questions may be formulated just on the subject of the survival of the ant species and each one of these questions points to creation by design and renders evolutionist claims impossible.



Sacrifice of Workers

The eggs that the queen ant lays and immature young ants both live in the child care chambers of the nest. If the temperature and humidity become such that they may harm the young, then worker ants carry the eggs and the young ants to a more suitable environment. They keep the eggs close to the surface in the daytime to benefit from the heat and take them to deeper chambers at night or on rainy days.

This means that the workers try to protect the eggs and young ants with great care and try to keep them comfortable. Some of them take the larvae around the nest on a hot day to cool them down and some of them cover the walls of the nest with discarded cocoons to prevent humidity and some of them seek food. Every single one of these actions shows that ants act out of very kind consideration. One ant will take the larvae around the nest to cool them, while another ant will insulate the wall of the nest by cocoons to adjust the temperature – a very modern insulation technique. Yet, it must not be forgotten that this being which we regard as having made a kind gesture, does not have any thinking capacity. Regardless of how advanced its technology may become, science will never be able to find the cause of this sacrifice displayed by a tiny bug. Furthermore, this sacrifice is in total contradiction of the most fundamental principles of the theory of evolution.

The sole task of one group of worker ants in ant colonies is to look after the eggs and larvae. These workers are generous with their time. They spend every moment of their lives guaranteeing the survival of their species.


All these examples show that these living beings also act under Allah's inspiration and that they obey Him. This secret is explained in the Qur'an as follows:

Everything in the heavens and every creature on the earth prostrates to Allah, as do the angels. They are not puffed up with pride. They fear their Lord above them and do everything they are ordered to do. (Surat an-Nahl: 49-50)



Treasure of Ants

All the activities of ant colonies centre on the queen and her eggs. The ants hold their queens, who ensure the reproduction of their colonies, in high regard. All their needs are met by worker ants. The most important thing a worker ant does is to serve the queen and ensure her survival and her babies.

Ant eggs are the most valuable treasure of the colony. The first thing the ants do when they sense any danger to their larvae is to take the babies to a secure place. Yet, since baby ants die within a couple of hours of coming into contact with the dry air outside, worker ants try to keep the air humid in the sections where the larvae are. There are various techniques they have developed for this. First of all, they build their nests in such a way as to keep the moisture of the air and soil within tolerable limits. In addition, ants who assume the task of being caretakers of the babies, regularly shift brood up and down through the dense system of chambers. They try to find the most suitable environment for them. Furthermore, the needs of brood vary according to age. For instance, while eggs and larvae need a humid environment, the pupae have to be in a strictly dry medium. Workers keep on working for 24 hours without rest to complete these tasks.80

The worker ants in the colony have dedicated themselves to raising the eggs of their constantly laying queen instead of laying eggs themselves. They take many risks on this score, because the humid medium required for eggs and larvae is ideal for the growth of bacteria and fungi that are potential health hazards for the ants.

Then, how are the workers protected in such an unhealthy environment? Allah, Who has created ants with their magnificent systems, has given them another defence technique. The metapleural glands in the thorax of adult ants continuously secrete substances that kill bacteria and fungi. Therefore, ant colonies are rarely struck by bacterial or fungal infections.81



Can Darwinism Explain Sacrifice?

Charles Darwin, who is the originator of the theory of evolution, has suggested that the basic motivation of the process of evolution was that of staying alive. In Darwin's view, when individuals of a species acquire traits that increase their chances for survival, those individuals have an advantage; due to this advantage, they survive and produce relatively more living offspring, thus eventually spreading the trait throughout their species. Evolution, therefore, would be expected to favor self-preservation, not self-sacrifice.82

Yet, Darwin's theory of natural selection was given a shattering blow by the discovery of so many incredible examples of self-sacrifice shown by ants. It was very difficult for proponents of the theory of evolution to produce an explanation of such characteristics, some of which were found while Darwin was still alive. In fact, Darwin himself stated in his book, called The Origin of Species:

Many instincts are so wonderful that their development will probably appear to the reader a difficulty sufficient to overthrow my whole theory. I may here premise that I have nothing to do with the origin of the mental powers, any more than I have with that of life itself. 83

After such an open confession, the hypothesis he set forth in order to save his theory is beset by even greater complications. According to the explanation Darwin brought to this conflicting situation, natural selection was realized not at the level of individual, but at the group level within certain groups.

However, this could not go any further than a claim impossible to prove, because it was just an estimate which was set forth for the sake of saving the theory, which did not depend on any solid findings or observations. Evolutionists who came after Darwin could never explain the examples of sacrifice in animals.

It is impossible to explain the examples of sacrifice and generosity experienced among ants, termites, bees and other social insects by any technique offered by the theory of evolution. There is only a single explanation for a living being to put its own security and comfort at risk in order to work on providing security and comfort for members of the group it lives in: the social order of the group has been determined by a conscious designer and this designer has assigned different tasks for each member of the group. The members of the group abide by this task distribution and if necessary, sacrifice themselves. What is important is the survival of the order of the group, and the sacrifice needed for it may be achieved, not by the will of insects lacking any consciousness and judgement, but by the will that directs them.


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Chapter 7

Feeding And Hunting


Each living being uses different methods to satisfy its needs for food. In this chapter, you are going to read about the tactics used by ants when looking for food, about their communications and the competition among them to get to the food. All the tactics tried by such a small creature to obtain its food shows, as in previous chapters, the greatness, magnificence and power of Allah, the "Supreme Possessor of Intelligence" Who has created them.

How is a "family" with a population in hundreds of thousands fed? One of the most important things needed for survival of the colony is resolving of the food problem, and each ant in the colony has its share of this responsibility.

As they do in other aspects of their lives, the ants carry out systematic work in solving the nutrition problem. Old worker ants are sent out as foragers to survey the land around the nest to find food resources for the colony which has a population of hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions). When forager ants find a food source, they gather their nestmates around the food in numbers which depend on the size and richness of the source. Ants solve the food problem by a very strong communication network and their generosity, which never says "Only me". .



Ants That Feed Each Other
Ants of different species try not to get in each other's way while looking for food. Each one determines a path for itself to get to the food source. If ants go into another colony's territory by mistake, this becomes a declaration of war. In such a situation, forager ants come back to the nest right away and close the nest entrance and all colony members come together to defend their colonies against danger.
Then, how do the ants feed during this fight, when they have no opportunity to bring in food?

At this point, a feature of the ants that distinguishes them from other living beings emerges. During this period when they cannot search for food, all colony members feed on the food stored in the crops of young workers.

In fact, this sharing technique is one they use all their lives, and not only at special times. Ants not only transport the liquid droplets, but they feed each other mouth to mouth. Once a forager enters the nest laden with liquid food, she stands still for a period of time, swinging its head from side to side while waiting for a nestmate to approach; or else it moves directly toward nestmates and presents them with the food droplet held between her widely opened mandibles.84 This liquid food exchange, done by regurgitating which provides quick distribution of the food to the colony is, in fact, quite an impressive example of sharing. Also husks and seeds brought to the nest are consumed as well by all of the ants together. Thus, the food requirement of the whole colony is satisfied without any problems.
This system is one that makes it necessary to admit of the existence of a supreme designer. It is a reality that a chain of random events cannot form such a storage system so complex and requiring great sacrifice. What is more, each ant comes to this world knowing this system. That is, the necessity to share its food has been ingrained in it before its birth and not after. Not only has this sense of sacrifice been inspired in it, but because a special mechanism is needed to present the food it has saved in its crop, its body structure has been designed to make this sharing possible. This sharing event realized among ant colonies once again renders the word "chance" insufficient or even meaningless, due to the sense of self-sacrifice being much in evidence. As we have emphasized many times before, the theory of evolution assumes the existence of a full-fledged competition and life struggle among all living things. Therefore, examples of self-sacrifice among ant species are acts most difficult to explain. Ants living under a feeding system based on sharing are proof that they do not act in the way suggested by the theory of evolution. They are not engaging in a random "fight for survival" but are rather performing the duties given to them (according to the Qur'an "revealed to them") and thus they are able to transform their colonies with hundreds of thousands or even millions of members into a true civilization.

In the Qur'an, in surat an-Nahl, Allah describes the "revelation" that makes it obligatory for the animals to perform certain tasks given to them by Him:

And your Lord revealed to the bee: "Build dwellings in the mountains and the trees and also in the structures which men erect. Then eat from every kind of fruit and travel the paths of your Lord, which have been made easy for you to follow." From inside them comes a drink of varying colours, containing healing for mankind. There is certainly a sign in that for people who reflect. (Surat an-Nahl: 68-69)

The Qur'an, of course, does not list the animals' special duties through Allah's inspiration one by one. The honey bee is just one example. Yet, when we look at the ant, we can see that this small being, which performs as perfect tasks as the honey bee, and which is at least as generous, social and loyal, acts under a similar revelation.



Rational Techniques In Carrying Food
The discovery by approximately 8800 known ant species of the food sources they need, and their carrying them to their homes are done by different methods. In certain species, ants hunt on their own and carry the food individually. Yet in others, hunting is done as a group and they carry and defend their food together.
If the food they find is in suitable dimensions for them, ants usually carry it alone. If the food is too large for a single ant to carry or if it is in small piles, all within a particular area, they give out a poisonous hormone to prevent others from coming into the territory. Then they go to call other workers, large and small, to carry the food.

The perfect division of labour governing the lives of ants is observed here also. Large ants tear up the food and defend it against strangers, while smaller ones take care of carrying the pieces home. A worker lifts the food with its mandible and keeps it in front of it while returning home. When there is a group, the substance they can carry becomes even larger. They lift the food by using one or two legs. At the same time, they bite the food, opening their mandibles. Workers apply different techniques, depending on their positions and their directions. Those in front walk backwards, pulling the food. Those at the back walk forward, pushing it, and those at the sides give support. By this technique, it is possible to carry weights many times greater than what a single ant can carry. In fact, it has been observed that ants acting in unison can carry a weight 5,000 times as heavy as that carried by a single worker. 100 ants can carry a large worm at ground level, moving it 0.4 cm per second.



Ants and Odor Trails
Communication by trails (following of odor trails) is a technique that is commonly used by ants. There are many interesting examples on the subject:

An ant finding a food source leaves a chemical trail on the ground with the needle at its rear. This trace helps its nest mates reach the food source.
An ant species living in American deserts secretes a special odor produced in its venom sac if it realizes that the dead bug it has found is too wide or heavy to carry or drag. Its nestmates far away detect the odor and start moving towards its source. When ants have gathered around the victim in sufficient numbers to carry it, they start carrying it towards the nest.

When fire ant workers leave the nest in search of food, they may follow odor trails for a short while, but they eventually separate from each other and begin to explore singly. When a fire ant discovers a food source, it heads home at a slower pace. Her entire body is held closer to the ground. At frequent intervals, the sting is extruded, and its tip is drawn lightly over the ground surface, much as a pen is used to ink a thin line. Thus, it leaves a trail behind it that leads to the food source.85



Ants Who Serve As Compasses
Food-seeking ants carry out a task in a manner which is very hard to explain. They go to the food source following a wiggly path, but when they return home, it is via a short and straight line. Then, how is it that ants that can see only a few centimetres ahead of themselves, march in such a straight line?
To find an answer to this question, a researcher called Richard Feynman placed a clump of sugar at one end of the bathtub, then waited for an ant to come and find it. As this pioneer ant returned home with news of the feast, Feynman followed the wiggly path it followed. He then traced the path of each successive ant to follow the trail. The successive ants, he found, did not stick exactly to the trail; they did better, cutting corners until the trail became a straight line.

Later on, inspired by Feynman, a computer scientist, Alfred Bruckstein, proved mathematically that successive followers really do make a wiggly line straight. The conclusion he arrived at was the same: after a certain number of ants, the path length shrinks to some minimum value: to the shortest possible distance between two points - namely, a straight line.86

What we talked about above is of course, something which would require great skill on the part of a human being because he would certainly need to use a compass, a watch and at times much more complex instruments for any distance relative to his own dimensions and would have to have a perfect knowledge of mathematics. In contrast to this, the guide an ant has in exploring on its own is the sun, while its compass is the position of branches and other natural landmarks. Later on, ants remember their shapes and can thus find the shortest route to their nests although they have never had any prior knowledge of it.

This is very easy to say but very hard to explain! How can these tiny living beings do such calculations when they have neither a brain nor the capacity to think and judge?

Imagine that you leave a man in an unfamiliar forest. Even if he knows the direction to go, he will have a hard time finding his way and will probably get lost. In the meantime, it will be necessary for him to look around carefully and think about which would be the best way to go. Yet, ants act as if they are encoded on the matter of path finding. In the evening, they can easily find and follow the road they took to find the food in the morning, even if all the conditions have changed.



The Perfect Hunting Technique
Certain ant species use their teeth to eat spider eggs, caterpillars, insects and termites. Many ants (for example Dacetine) specialize in non-winged insects. These insects live in groups in the ground and in decayed leaves. The bugs have extensions under their bodies in the form of folded forks. When they rock and get up, this organ throws them into the air and forward like a miniature kangaroo. Dacetine ants use their mandibles like an animal-catching trap against this very effective manoeuvre. When the food-seeking ant receives the odor of an insect with its antennae, it lies in wait, opening its mandibles 180 degrees. It locks the small teeth in its mandible by pressing onto its upper palate. It inspects its surroundings by moving its antennae forward. Then the ant approaches the insect slowly. When its antennae touch it, the little insect is at a distance where its apical teeth can reach it. When the ant lowers its palate, the mandible suddenly snaps shut and the insect is squeezed between the teeth as if impaled.87
The above-mentioned ants never miss their prey, because they have mandibles with the fastest reflex in the world.

Our speed of blinking the eye is very slow compared to the biting speed of the trapper ant. While the opening and closing of the eyelid takes about one third of a second, the mandibles of these ants (Odontomachus bawi) work almost 100 times faster. The fastest hit observed took in 0.33 milliseconds.88

The mandibular structures of trapper ants are approximately 1.8 milimetre long. In the interior sections, there is a sac full of air attached to the trachea. This system ensures exceptionally fast movement of the teeth. The mandibles act as a miniature mouse trap. When hunting, the mandible is fully opened and ready to close any time. The biting speed slows down near the end of the biting process. To prevent the teeth hitting each other very hard, the mandible movement is slowed down by the special muscle system.89

It is impossible for such a hunting mechanism to have developed through evolution. That is, without conscious design and at random.

The only acceptable truth is that the power who has created the ants with all their miraculous characteristics and perfect life styles is Allah, Who is sovereign over all of nature and the universe.


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Chapter 8

Conclusion


We have given you some examples of the effects of Allah's art of creation on a living species only a few centimetres long. It is correct to say "some examples" because there are hundreds more, relating to ants, which can be listed. However, each one of the listed examples is in itself a matter for profound reflection.

It must not be forgotten that life forms exist all over the earth. The life bestowed by Allah on small ants, which have a complicated system and an extensive range of activities, has also been created for living beings in each square milimetre. Single-celled organisms, insects, wild animals and plants are all created with perfect programming, like the ants.

All these miracles of creation are things which human beings do not even think about during their daily lives, or they just look at them without comprehending them.

With this book, we have tried to dispel the deep mist with which modern society covers the people's eyes. Our goal is to present anew the proof of Allah's eternal existence to those who have forgotten Him because they have been too preoccupied all their lives with worldly matters, such as jobs, houses, and financial concerns. It is also our goal to give to those who do think of Him, new material to reflect upon. Both these tasks are very important. And as a major step towards their fulfilment, we have analyzed in this text the miracles of creation, so that the One Who is the mastermind behind them may come to be known and appreciated. Allah explains the significance of this as follows in our only indicator of the true path, the Qur'an:

And the earth- We have spread it out, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and produced therefrom every kind of beautiful growth (in pairs) - to be observed and commemorated by every devotee turning (to God). (Surah Qaf: 7-8)

Our goal is to have the readers think of the message of this book as a message "to be observed and commemorated". Therefore, rather than becoming submerged in the troubles of a society which has turned its back on Allah and forgotten Him, the reader should ponder deeply upon the existence and power of Allah and should rearrange his life in accordance with this truth.

Allah has created all the things He created to become acquainted with Him. Those who turn away from Him, despite this, deserve a great punishment