While quietly sitting at my office desk, and concentrating on my reading, a small, brown ant came speeding across my paper. Without paying too much attention, I brushed him off the desk and continued my reading. But it was not long and the same thing happened again. This was enough to get my thoughts away from my reading and pay attention to what was going on. I then noticed a large number of ants all scurrying around, not only on my desk, but also on the floor. And my waste paper basket was just crawling with them.

Wondering what the great attraction could be, I recalled that the day before I had left a banana peel in the waste basket to which a lot of ants had been attracted. But cleaning the waste basket carefully and shaking out all the ants should have taken care of that problem, I thought. Apparently the ants remembered the banana peel, even though it had been removed long ago. But how could they remember the way?

And why were they on my desk at this time, acting as though they had business to do? A careful check of my desk revealed a forgotten candy, slightly sticky, but obviously appealing to the ants’ taste. Having lost my interest in the candy, I disposed of it and figured that would be the end of that. But not so! The ants kept coming and coming in a long file. Knocking them off really did little good, because they were constantly replaced by others.

This set me to tracing where this whole battalion might be coming from. I could see them coming up the leg of my desk, so I traced them back, along the base of the filing cabinet, around the corner, and then off at an angle to the base of the book case. When I got to the door I stopped looking.

What puzzled me for a while is that they all came along the same track. And when the comers met the goers, they would stop momentarily, exchange some kind of signals or information, and scurry right on. But when they crossed the floor from the filing cabinet to the book case without any object to guide them, they would always cross at the same place. There had to be some way they could tell which way to go.

What was their traffic sign? There could be a chemical deposited along the way to guide them. Having heard about pheromones, the chemicals which insects release to give various kinds of messages, I figured that I had just found a practical illustration of one.

But if the pheromone gave them the signal where to go, I was interested in changing their signals, so that they would stop coming to my desk to bother me. So I rubbed their trail with concentrated liquid soap. This apparently erased all the traffic signs. At least they stopped coming. It worked!

After a while I checked their trail to see if any were still searching for my discarded candy , but found no ants except at the door, where large numbers of them were coming and going. A tiny crack in the floor appeared to be the front entrance to their hide–out. A little wad soaked in liquid soap pressed on the crack took care of that. By now my signal to the ants was very clear—they were not welcome in my office. Not that I don’t like ants. It‘s just that I don’t want to compete with them for space. In fact, I would be willing to give them the whole candy if that would keep them satisfied and away.

Feeling smug about having solved my problem, I just hoped that they would take care of theirs. But my thoughts stayed with the ants for a while, and I began to wonder what these little fellows really looked like. When curiosity got the better of me, I picked up one of the casualties, took it to the lab and had a close look under the microscope.

Here I saw a gigantic–looking creature, all brown, except for black eyes, and ten black rings on each antenna. What a fantastically marvelous creature this turned out to be. Its mandibles looked formidably strong. Its legs were tipped with two hooks that stuck out like a ship’s anchor. And the body had some very fine bristles. I did feel a little sorry for the ant because its abdomen looked awfully flat, making me think that he probably had been very hungry. But now it was too late.

Reflecting on all this, I feel I should confess that basically I was at fault in unwittingly inviting them to my feast. After all, I set up signposts telling them about free banana and candy, thereby say ing to them they were welcome. I think I was right, though, in not feeling that the ants were welcome at my desk. I was there first, and it would be very difficult for me to move my territory. And they are so much more flexible in this. Too bad some of them had to bite the dust before I found a way of redirecting them and separating our territories.

But I benefited greatly in that I learned to appreciate their beautiful structure more; I had opportunity to respect the ants’ existence; I was reminded that it is not necessary to destroy God’s creatures when they “interfere” with us; l was strengthened in my conviction that there are good alternatives to getting out the ubiquitous killer spray can; and I had a glimpse of their intricate communication system, which helps me to understand just a little better the ways of the ants. What reason to praise their Maker!

And all this because of a banana peel. And a candy. 

Aaldert Mennega is a Professor of Biology at Dordt College at Sioux Center, Iowa.