Earth Has 20 Quadrillion Ants, Study Says (washingtonpost.com) 82
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: A new estimate for the total number of ants burrowing and buzzing on Earth comes to a whopping total of nearly 20 quadrillion individuals. That staggering sum -- 20,000,000,000,000,000, or 20,000 trillion -- reveals ants' astonishing ubiquity even as scientists grow concerned a possible mass die off of insects could upend ecosystems. In a paper released Monday by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of scientists from the University of Hong Kong analyzed 489 studies and concluded that the total mass of ants on Earth weighs in at about 12 megatons of dry carbon. Put another way: If all the ants were plucked from the ground and put on a scale, they would outweigh all the wild birds and mammals put together.
"It's unimaginable," said Patrick Schultheiss, a lead author on the study who is now a researcher at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, in a Zoom interview. "We simply cannot imagine 20 quadrillion ants in one pile, for example. It just doesn't work." Counting all those insects -- or at least enough of them to come up with a sound estimate -- involved combining data from "thousands of authors in many different countries" over the span of a century, Schultheiss added. To tally insects as abundant as ants, there are two ways to do it: Get down on the ground to sample leaf litter -- or set tiny pitfall traps (often just a plastic cup) and wait for the ants to slip in. Researchers have gotten their boots dirty with surveys in nearly every corner of the world, though some spots in Africa and Asia lack data. "It's a truly global effort that goes into these numbers," Schultheiss said.
"It's unimaginable," said Patrick Schultheiss, a lead author on the study who is now a researcher at the University of Wurzburg in Germany, in a Zoom interview. "We simply cannot imagine 20 quadrillion ants in one pile, for example. It just doesn't work." Counting all those insects -- or at least enough of them to come up with a sound estimate -- involved combining data from "thousands of authors in many different countries" over the span of a century, Schultheiss added. To tally insects as abundant as ants, there are two ways to do it: Get down on the ground to sample leaf litter -- or set tiny pitfall traps (often just a plastic cup) and wait for the ants to slip in. Researchers have gotten their boots dirty with surveys in nearly every corner of the world, though some spots in Africa and Asia lack data. "It's a truly global effort that goes into these numbers," Schultheiss said.
Too many Olympic swimming pools to count? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Too many Olympic swimming pools to count? (Score:4, Insightful)
74 quadrillion millimeters.
Average ant length = 3.7mm
https://misfitanimals.com/ants... [misfitanimals.com]
(for whatever that source is worth)
Re:Too many Olympic swimming pools to count? (Score:4, Insightful)
74 quadrillion millimeters.
Average ant length = 3.7mm https://misfitanimals.com/ants... [misfitanimals.com] (for whatever that source is worth)
a.k.a. 74 billion kilometers; to put in perspective: that's many times the distance Sun-Pluto (about 6 billion km) ; or (as of April 2020) Voyager 1 was at a distance of 22.3 billion kilometers from the Sun.
Re:Too many Olympic swimming pools to count? (Score:4, Interesting)
The land area of the earth is about 165 trillion square meters.
So, on average, there are 120 ants per square meter.
Re:Too many Olympic swimming pools to count? (Score:4, Funny)
a.k.a. 74 billion kilometers; to put in perspective: that's many times the distance Sun-Pluto (about 6 billion km) ; or (as of April 2020) Voyager 1 was at a distance of 22.3 billion kilometers from the Sun.
Ants are pretty strong, so... I'm thinking an Earth-Pluto space elevator made of ants -- w/multiple strands for redundancy ...
(This seems like something for Randall's next xkcd "What If ?" book.)
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a.k.a. 74 billion kilometers; to put in perspective: that's many times the distance Sun-Pluto (about 6 billion km) ; or (as of April 2020) Voyager 1 was at a distance of 22.3 billion kilometers from the Sun.
So you're saying that all this time we've been wasting time and research effort on expensive rocketry when we could just have been using carbon neutral space elevators made of ants?
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a.k.a. 74 billion kilometers;
Thank you. While running 1am ant length calculations...for some reason my brain was ok with arithmetic, but not trusting itself with moving decimal points.
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a.k.a. 74 billion kilometers; to put in perspective: that's many times the distance Sun-Pluto (about 6 billion km) ; or (as of April 2020) Voyager 1 was at a distance of 22.3 billion kilometers from the Sun.
Damn, I was dreaming big, but Proxima Centauri is 40 trillion kilometers from earth.
We are considerably short of ants.
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TFA says that the 12 megatons of ants outweigh all the mammals.
That's bullcrap.
Humans are mammals. An average human contains 12 kg of carbon. There are 7 billion humans. That's 0.012 * 7B = 84 megatons of carbon.
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It should say "wild mammals". There's about 3 megatons of wild mammals [ourworldindata.org] add in the birds and it's still well below 12 megatons. Our world in data gives 60 megatons of humans (pretty close to your number - congrats) and a bit over 100 megatons of livestock.
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I want to know if 12 megatons of dry carbon weighs more or less than 12 megatons of wet carbon.
Like which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? ...)
(Obviously, "pound", not "Pound"
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"Like which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers? "
First, lets deal with proper units:
which weighs more,0.453592kg of lead or 0.453592kg of feathers?
Since the feathers are less dense, some of the mass of feathers will be further away from the center of the planet than the lead, therefore they will be experiencing less gravity.
The lead weighs more.
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Like which weighs more, a pound of lead or a pound of feathers?
Brian Cox did a fun related experiment in a huge NASA vacuum chamber.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Too many Olympic swimming pools to count? (Score:2)
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The problem is there's also a significant amount of information to consider when categorizing the ants which makes it a fundamentally unstable number.
The problem is that the volume of ants is measured in Olympic sized swimming pools while the information is measured in Libraries of Congress. But when you combine them the books get wet and expand with the pages clogging up the drains and causing the swimming pools to flood.
The whole study turns into a soggy mess.
Not good enough.... (Score:4, Funny)
I demand an accurate ant census.
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Shit! I have to start counting again now.
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20,000,000,000,000,000
(squish). Now only 19,999,999,999,999,999. (squish). 19,999,999,999,999,998. (squish) (squish). 19,999,999,999,999,996.
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20,000,000,000,000,000
(squish). Now only 19,999,999,999,999,999. (squish). 19,999,999,999,999,998. (squish) (squish). 19,999,999,999,999,996.
Bonus points if you can set that to the 99 bottles of beer tune.
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Squish them, more will be made. :P
Re: Not good enough.... (Score:2)
64 bit integers (Score:3, Funny)
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And this is a fun fact we normally use to explain customers why using 64 bit integers for every stupid auto-incremental id is just plain waste of disk and memory.
What rule do you follow to determine when to use a 64 bit index and when to use a 32 bit index?
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The "does it matter" rule. I.e. is there any space constraint? No? Then 64bit it is.
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The "does it matter" rule. I.e. is there any space constraint? No? Then 64bit it is.
Exactly this. Disk space is cheap. Memory grows cheaper by the day. Unless you're in an aggressively constrained environment (at least by today's standards) it's nearly always better to avoid the potential time bomb of a 32-bit int and instead just start with 64-bit.
Re:64 bit integers (Score:4, Funny)
BIGINT or BIGANT?
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Is that all? (Score:2)
We need more! :P
Fine tuning (Score:3)
Apparently, the Universal Constants are fine tuned to accommodate ant habitat.
And we thought it was the robots (Score:2)
that were coming for us.
Nuke it (Score:2)
Yikes!! Nuke the planet ASAP!
Don't worry until they make off with your whisky. (Score:2)
Don't worry until they make off with your whisky. Your GOOD whisky -- the Balvenie, the Dalwhinnie, the Lavagulin... when you see that bottle leave atop a mass of ants.. you ahve a problem.
I have a mild ant problem. It's florida. This is ant city. They don't make off with my whisky, or food.. but they are persistent little buggers, and I have the "crazy" variety, which are notoriously hard to be rid of.
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Are you sure you weren't on an island in the Caribbean? Was there a police sergeant around who looked like the Cat from Red Dwarf?
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And so many murders that it is a wonder that there is still anybody alive on the island?
I used to make similar comments to my mom whenever she'd watch Murder, She Wrote. "Why on earth does anyone choose to stay there in Cabot Cove? It's only a matter of time before they get bumped off..."
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That is about 6,956 pyramids of Giza in weight (2 grams ant average)
Maybe you live on an island infested with giant mutant ants, but here on the rest of the planet, the average ant weighs a few milligrams.
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Wait a second, are you saying Ants built the pyramids? The aliens guy is going to be pissed off.
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Wait a second, are you saying Ants built the pyramids?
I have it on good authority that Elvis built the pyramids [youtu.be].
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Two grams per ant? Tell me where you live, because I'm staying the hell away.
Most ants weigh between 1-10 milligrams. The largest ants in South America and Africa come in at about 90 mg.
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That sounds about right (Score:4, Funny)
Oh c'mon! That's nothing (Score:1)
We have have over 20 quadrillion dollars in the derivatives markets, and the earth still floats in space
Ant accommodation. (Score:2)
It was for tenants only.
Yay! (Score:4, Interesting)
At risk of being a pedant... (Score:1)
...spiders arn't insects, they're arachnids.
Just saying :)
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It's also in the creepy-crawly area and it reacts just as well to bug spray.
Re:Yay! (Score:4, Informative)
and all those ants (Score:2)
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That's because they eat jam.
GREAT (Score:2)
I've been busy counting ants for the past 2 years 8 months and 43 days, then you start throwing random numbers out there and I lose track. Okay, starting over - 1, 2, 3...
make that 19 quadrillion & change (Score:1)
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Uh that's a lot of change.
And it is all just one big global mega colony (Score:2, Offtopic)
C'mon, Slashdot (Score:3)
The one time that tired old meme [youtube.com] is actually fitting and nobody does it?
Just be happy: (Score:1)
One of my least favourite ants:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Just be happy if you live somewhere that you will never meet one. They hang up on long grass stalks and if you go near, several of them will leap upon you in full attack mode. Quickly you start to dance and sing. All around you are entertained.
These others are usually found alongside them:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org].
I have known the joy of having been hit by both species within a minute. I would be happy to send both species in their
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The rest of the world has realized for a long time that, in Australia, nature is basically trying to kill everyone.
Recount (Score:1)
What is this? (Score:2)
A world for ants?
minus 1 now (Score:1)
oops sorry, minus one as of this morning. honest mistake.
Now if only... (Score:2)
= 2*10^16 (Score:2)
Period.
So in a frontal assault of a sugar factory (Score:2)
They could suffer a loss of quadrillions of soldiers if it meant victory. Within a few days of occupying the sugar factory they could restore their numbers, and move on to their next target.
Yeah, I need to read less about all the wars going on.
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You probably shouldn't watch Phase IV [imdb.com].
Apparently... (Score:2)
Apparently about half of them are currently in my kitchen.
Internet of Things (Score:1)
I think we've finally found a use for all those IPv6 addresses.
How many duplicates? (Score:2)
Dinner is Served (Score:2)
Very good news for anteaters.
They had to count them all (Score:2)
And every one of them ... (Score:2)
Oh, you weren't talking about aunts? Never mind.
17,600 gallons of ocean water for each ant... (Score:2)
Just for perspective:
20 quadrillion ants... 352 quintillion gallons in the ocean...
Or 17,600 gallons of ocean for every ant.
Taking over the earth (Score:2)
Right under our noses. And we were worried about aliens!
That's all? (Score:1)