Just who are the ants?

While walking to the neighborhood ice cream stand we saw what had to be several thousand ants swarming around a crack in the sidewalk. The girls and I stopped and watched as the mass in a science fiction horroresque way took over its small corner of the world.

We joked about the line from Bugs Life, where the trail gets broken by a falling leaf and the line of ants gets backed up and panic ensues.

And I thought about stepping on it, wiping out a vast majority of it's population. But then I looked up; waiting for yet a bigger shoe to come down and step on us. A few minutes later, the girls must have had the same idea, as they asked if it was okay if they did a little stomping. I said no, and told them of the bigger shoe that would come from on high and squish us, as we were following our own line (the sidewalk) to our own food source (the ice cream).

As we walked on I wondered just what purpose ants play in the great circle of life. Does all their tunneling help the soil with aeration? Are they a major food source, holding up the whole food pyramid? How does their social structure compare and contrast to our own? One thing I do know, those little Insecta certainly insight a multitude of questions.