The sharp sting to my earlobe was the first indication that something had gone horribly wrong. The ants were supposed to be on the outside of my bee suit, not the inside. But that was not how things were working out.
Words Dale Morris | illustration Jess Nicholson
Army ants are ferocious predators who bring down prey hundreds of times larger than themselves by swarming over their victims like Black Friday shoppers in an American mall. They are even rumoured to be able to kill humans. Their very effectiveness at murdering everything in their path has forced them into a nomadic lifestyle, and following every hunt, they must break camp and migrate to a new location, lest they outstrip their resources and starve to death.
They do not build a shelter – they don’t have time to – but instead clamber on top of each other, hooking claws together in chains until they become a massive seething ball. This temporary hive, comprising half a million individuals, is called a bivouac; a fearsome yet astonishing sight.
Being an entomological field researcher in Costa Rica at the time, I had been hired by a film crew to help capture ‘never before seen’ footage of these miniature maniacs for an upcoming BBC documentary, appropriately dubbed Killer Ants.
An advance email from the cameraman stated he wanted to film deep inside the bivouac. He wanted to shoot the queen. And so, I concocted a cunning plan to get a preliminary audience with Her Majesty.
A few days later, there I was, deep in the forest, standing in front of a bustling ball of ants, while diligently sealing the cuffs and gloves on my eBay-purchased bee suit with duct tape. My trusty assistant circled me, securing zips and fastenings while making sure I was 100% sealed up. I felt like Houdini before a show. I looked like a frontline coronavirus worker from Wuhan, China.
The giant bivouac, fully three feet wide, awaited, it’s outer surface bristling with activity. A column of ants, meandering back from the forest, hauled in body parts from a multitude of victims. A tarantula abdomen and a mutilated centipede vanished silently into the colony as if the whole thing were nothing more than a giant, ravenous, disembodied stomach.
I approached full of apprehension, extending my gloved hand into the bivouac and watched in awe as the outer surface opened up like a magic portal. Out poured pints and pints of white cocoons (the next generation in metamorphosis). The ants, justifiably cheesed off, swarmed up my arms like black molasses, and within seconds I was covered head to foot.
And that’s when the pain started.
The suit must have been made from economy materials, given that the big soldier ants were now stinging me through its fabric. Their outsized mandibles, resembling walrus tusks, masticated away enthusiastically, while their smaller brethren slipped easily in through the facemask’s mesh and began stinging my face.
I tried to remain calm but under the circumstances, that proved difficult, and hence there was much wailing and bumping into trees as I clumsily tore off the gloves and attempted to peel myself out of the suit.
Sadly, that didn’t go well either. I had forgotten about the duct tape on the cuffs and now my hands were trapped inside the inverted sleeves with all those pissed-off soldiers. My ensuing panic did not make things better. Standing up, I tripped over the arms and fell to the ground where many more ants were rushing about looking for something on which to vent their indignant rage. My writhing body gave them the opportunity they had been looking for.
After much howling and sobbing on my part, my assistant eventually put down her camera, stifling her laughter, and came to my rescue. It took a full 10 minutes (an eternity) to be fully liberated from that suit and those hateful ants. A few still meted out revenge among the hairs of my armpits, and a huge soldier hung from my nostril, legs flailing, jaws hooked tightly like an ornate nose ring. It had to be carefully removed with tweezers.
Then, as if a signal had been given to call off the attack and come home, the army disbanded and the bivouac melted back into shape.
I never did see the queen but I imagine she saw me and, thoroughly insulted by my invasion of her palace, gave out the order ‘Off with his head!’ Fortuitously, they failed at that. But not for want of trying.
As I staggered away, aided by my assistant, like a wounded soldier leaving a battlefield, I looked back at the bivouac and in my mind’s eye I saw the queen deep inside, surrounded by her loyal guards and imagined her voice sending out a warning to me. ‘We are not amused. Peasant!’
