Researchers Say there are 20,000 Trillion Ants on Earth

 

Quran 27:18

When they reached the valley of the ants, the ants said, "Ants, come into the house. Don't let Solomon and his soldiers crush you until they feel it."

١٨ حَتَّىٰ إِذَا أَتَوْا عَلَىٰ وَادِ النَّمْلِ قَالَتْ نَمْلَةٌ يَا أَيُّهَا النَّمْلُ ادْخُلُوا مَسَاكِنَكُمْ لَا يَحْطِمَنَّكُمْ سُلَيْمَانُ وَجُنُودُهُ وَهُمْ لَا يَشْعُرُونَ

New estimates of the total number of burrowing and vocalizing ants on Earth put the total number at about 20,000 trillion.

This staggering total — 20,000,000,000,000,000, or 20,000 trillion — is a staggering revealing ubiquity. In a recent paper published by Hong Kong University scientists, they analyzed 489 studies and concluded that the total mass of ants on Earth weighs about 12 megatons of dry carbon. In other words, if you pulled all the ants out of the ground and put them on a scale, they would weigh more than all the wild birds and mammals combined. There are about 2.5 million ants per human.

Patrick Schultheiss, lead author of the study, said it was "imaginative," adding, "I can't imagine, say, 20,000 trillion ants in one heap. It took combining data from "thousands of authors in different countries" over a century to count enough to make reasonable estimates, Schultheiss added.

To count as many insects as ants, there are two options. Get down to the ground and take a leaf sample, or set up a small trap (often just a plastic cup) and wait for the ants to slip inside. We don't have data for some places in Africa and Asia, but researchers are getting their boots dirty with surveys in nearly every part of the world.

"Tackling these numbers is truly a global effort. Schultheiss said.

Ants, like humans, have marched across virtually all continents and all kinds of habitats. According to the research team, ground-dwelling ants are most common in tropical and subtropical regions, but they are found almost everywhere except in the coldest regions of the planet.

Or as noted author and mycologist (i.e. ant researcher) E.O. As Wilson once said, "Wherever you go - except in the Antarctic or the Arctic, you won't go there because there are no ants - no matter how different human cultures are, no matter how different the natural environment is." Although different, the world could certainly be better if there were a lot of ants, they aerate the soil by creating tunnels and pull the seeds underground for them to germinate. They are countless arthropods Carpenter ants are a nuisance to homeowners, but without the decomposing power of wood-destroying insects, forests pile up to the edge with dead wood.