Antlion Redux

It was a summer of love and abundance for my antlion pals. After the regrettable Porthos incident the two remaining antlions settled down and built themselves  some pits good and proper. And with the pits came feedings. Many a day I would come home with three or four ants to be fed to Ishmael and Queequeg, as they were now called.  Their names were changed from Alferd Packer and Liver-Eating Johnson because, in all fairness, only one of the antlions was a cannibal.  Furthermore, constantly explaining who Packer and Johnson were became rather tiresome. However, I did not foresee that constantly explaining who Ishmael and Queequeg are would be infinitely more depressing.

All of this was the furthest thing from the antlions lethal, slightly buried, pinprick heads though. For them times, were indeed good with no sign of abating. Then two unrelated facts coalesced to cause their own teacup famine. A). Winter made the ants go away. B). I am lazy. Every day I would walk past their bowl and note to myself "Huh, I should feed the antlions this week." Spurred by hunger and abandoned by their caretaker, the creatures began to create increasingly complex and ever-changing patterns in the sand. At first, I thought this was a clever ploy to gain my attention and curry favor with me. This was a sound strategy and I did indeed mentally note extra hard that it was probably time to feed the antlions. It soon became apparent, however, that the creatures were not familiar with the work of George R. R. Martin. They were valiantly attempting to eat each other.

Antlion larva are passive hunters which trap and kill prey that stumble into specially constructed pits. The majority of their lives are spent in the bottom of these pits with four or five grains of sand covering their heads and only their massive mandibles exposed, ready to snap closed at the slightest vibration. Antlions are also aware of each other enough to skirt the outside of another antlion's pit when they move. This style of hunting makes it remarkably hard for antlions to devour each other unless you do something stupid such as remove them from the sand and place them on a hard ceramic surface within sensory range of each other. That didn't stop Ishmael and Queequeg from giving it the good old college try, though. For about a month and a half they relocated, avoided the other antlion pit, built another shallow pit, and waited to trap the other antlion while it relocated and built a shallow pit in an attempt to trap the  other antlion while it relocated in an attempt to catch the other antlion... and so on. I watched the evidence for this tango all the while thinking "I really, really, really need to feed the antlions." Then the battle lines were set and all movement and pit construction stopped. I assumed I killed them. Again. Little did I know...

One evening I returned home and walked past the bookshelf where the antlions were kept. I was suddenly struck with the odd sensation of forgetting to think something. I stood for a moment and searched my mind for what I could have possibly forgotten to think and then it came to me: I forgot to note that I should  have fed the antlions. My lightening-quick Sherlockian-esque mind immediately set to work on the mystery with my astounding powers of deduction : Why didn't I note that I need to feed them? The bowl is no longer there. Where  is the bowl? The bowl is toppled over onto the floor. They escaped. Oh shit! Goddamned right. They planned this. That's insane. Fuck you. I saw Aliens, and I'm out of here. Come back here you goddamned coward!

I knelt down to the scattered pile of sand and noted that there were two paths that split off in opposite directions. They followed along the obstacle created by the hard wood floor and the rug. Following the first path and along the rug-line, over the course of a meter, I found three punctured and desiccated silverfish, and one plump antlion. At first I was startled at the number of insects apparently in my living space that I had not purchased, but I gradually grew extremely impressed at the supposed non-existent hunting ability of Ishmael. I attempted to track Queequeg using the same method I used to find Ishmael but the path in the sand veered up and over the rug and then the trail went cold. I scooped up the  sand and dumped Ishmael back in the bowl where he began to build a pit. After Ishmael was situated I once again searched in vain for Queequeg.

Two days later I was leaving the room , having given up entirely on Queequeg, when I saw the largest goddamned wolf spider I'd ever seen at this altitude sitting in the center of the rug. It was larger than the tip of my thumb. I was about to smash the goddamned thing with the heel of my boot when I was struck by a sudden hunch and knelt down for a closer look. What had happened was both obvious and mind-blowing: Queequeg had traveled three meters from the bookshelf and snuggled down into my carpet fibers. He then somehow snagged an itinerate spider five times larger than himself by the abdomen, pinned it to the rug all the while burrowing into the protection of the carpet fibers, and he then proceeded to drain it. Queequeg was extradited from the rug and returned to the antlion containment chamber. Gently. And with great respect.

I bought a clarinet of crickets that very evening.