Daniel Adler, age 11, of Indianapolis, Indiana, for his question:

Are army ants dangerous?

Army ants are deadly dangerous to any living creature. in their paths: They travel like hordes of carnivorous bandits, devouring every animal that cannot escape them, A plague of locusts leaves a region stripped of every speck of greenery. A column of army ants on the march leaves a region bereft of living animals. People who know them would rather face a hungry leopard.

There are almost 3,000 species of ant and all of them are social insects, living in large family colonies centered around an egg laying queen. Most species are stay at homes, living for several years in well established nests. Hence , we know where to find them. This is not true of the army ants of South America and the driver ants of Africa. These large, lone legged broom or black species do not live in established homes.

In both species, the colony lives like a plundering horde of bandits, forever on the move. When on the march, perhaps 150,000 ants advance in a crowded column, swarming over the forest floor like a dark running river. The army includes soldiers and workers foraging for food. Other workers carry eggs and tend the young as they go. Another group attends the queen. The hungry horde devours insects, swarms over every animal, . over bushes, devouring birds and their young, over dozing snakes and any large animal that happens to be wounded or asleep.

The driver ants of Africa are said to be even more aggressive than the South American array ants. Sometimes they march on villages and people flee before them, taking what animals they can. When the plundering horde has passed, the villagers return often to find the bones of some forgotten farm animal who had been left helplessly tethered. A bed ridden sick or wounded person would meet the same ghastly fate.

Every few weeks, army ants and driver ants must pause a while to renew their numbers. A colony of army ants may cluster around a hollow tree. In a week, the queen lays perhaps 25,000 eggs. After another two weeks the eggs have become cocoons and hatched into young, workers.

While the marching army halts to gain new recruits, thousands of workers forage around the neighborhood for food. every morning they march forth in a crowded column of destruction. At evening they return to the place where other teams of workers tend the queen, her eggs and the emerging young. After a couple of weeks or so, when the march is resumed, the entire colony travels by night.

Thank goodness these dangerously destructive ants do not live in North America. But before we breathe a sigh of relief, let's remember the fierce fire ants that now infest much of our Southland. Until 1918, their territory was south of the border. Somehow these ants with fiery stinkers spread northward    and continue to spread. An accident or more likely some human carelessness just might give the dreadful army ants a chance to march into our territory. The moral of this is to beware of introducing foreign wild creatures into our native land.