Ants
Entry updated 17 September 2025. Tagged: Theme.
To most people, ants are merely annoyances that disrupt picnics and invade our kitchens in their relentless search for food and water. But they have also been admired for their work ethic and collective intelligence (see Hive Minds), and one version of Greek Mythology maintained that the feared warriors called Myrmidons were originally ants, transformed by Zeus into men. And "ant farms" – glass enclosures with dirt and burrowing ants – were once popular with children, qualifying the insects as pets. Maurice Maeterlinck's nonfictional La Vie des fourmis (1930; trans Bernard Miall as The Life of the Ant 1930) was influential in inspiring sympathy for ants by describing their everyday activities and likening their civilization to our own. Yet ants have usually appeared in sf as menaces, either of normal size or greatly enlarged (see Great and Small), though they have figured as supportive companions to humans who have been reduced in size (see Miniaturization).
In H G Wells's "The Empire of the Ants" (September 1905 Strand Magazine) a group of men is sent into the Amazon basin to help natives battle against a race of unusually intelligent and aggressive ants. Unable to stop them, they leave to deliver a warning to the rest of the world. Another race of highly intelligent ants plotting to take over the world menaces the US in Phase IV (1974), and they are also left undefeated at the end of the film. Intelligent ants in Brazil capture and playfully torment a man in A Lincoln Green's "The Captivity of the Professor" (February 1901 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine). Antagonistic ants figure in Ernest G Henham's "Bugs and Other Things" (in Written in the Dust, coll 1910), while in Carl Stephenson's story "Leiningen Versus the Ants" (1937 as "Leiningens Kampf mit den Ameisen"; trans December 1938 Esquire), filmed as The Naked Jungle (1954), dangerous South American ants, mildly unrealistic in their ferocity, are drowned when a man destroys a dam. A well-described civilization of intelligent ants on a Pacific island undertakes unsuccessfully to conquer the world in Francis Hernaman-Johnson's The Polyphemes: A Story of Strange Adventures Among Strange Beings (1906), and oversized (but not giant) intelligent ants from Mars invade the Earth in Roscoe Fleming's "The Menace of the Little" (Summer 1931 Amazing Stories Quarterly). In Árpád Ferenczy's Timotheus Thümmel und seine Ameisen (1923; trans anon as The Ants of Timothy Thümmel 1924), a tablet records that intelligent ants once battled against other ants. Ants threaten a race of intelligent crustaceans in A Hyatt Verrill's "Beyond the Pole" (October-November 1926 Amazing), and in his The World of the Giant Ants (Fall 1928 Amazing Stories Quarterly), several sorts of evolved ants bedevil South American explorers. Murray Leinster's "Doomsday Deferred" (24 September 1949 Saturday Evening Post) is about menacing ants seemingly under intelligent control encountered in South America, while ravenous, carnivorous ants also threaten people in the American South in Saul Wernick's The Fire Ants (1976) and in the Amazon basin in Peter Tremayne's The Ants (1979).
Intelligent ants contacted via Telepathy invade the New York Public Library to investigate and critique humanity in Frederick Philip Grove's Consider Her Ways (written 1913-1923; 1947). In Fredric Brown's "Come and Go Mad" (July 1949 Weird Tales), it is revealed that the world is secretly controlled by ants. Poisonous mutant ants attack a hotel in the film Ants (1977); strange ants destroy a small town in Paul Lalley's The Colony (1979); and Genetically Engineered ants attack Americans in Joe McKinney's The Red Empire (2011; exp as coll 2012) and Australian aborigines in Thoraiya Dyer's "The Wisdom of Ants" (December 2012 Clarkesworld). Ants are one menace encountered by the protagonists of He Ma's Tibet Code series. The titular creatures threaten the reader-protagonist of Edward Packard's Choose Your Own Adventure book War with the Mutant Spider Ants (1994). An Underground ant civilization is described in Bernard Werber's Les Fourmis (1991; trans Margaret Rocques as Empire of the Ants 1996) and its sequels. (The Videogame Empire of the Ants [2000] is based on Werber's novel.) Cixin Liu's Dang Konglong Yushang Mayi (2004; trans Elizabeth Hanlon as Of Ants and Dinosaurs 2020; alt trans Hanlon as The Cretaceous Past 2021) describes the interaction of civilizations of intelligent ants and Dinosaurs in the distant past. Two stories describe humans brought up by ants in the manner of Tarzan's apes: Manly Wade Wellman and Jack Binder's Comics story "Queen of the Driver Ants" (August 1940 Slam Bang Comics) features a woman raised by ants who then seeks dominance over the jungle. and a boy is raised by ants in Nick Warburton's play, Zartan (1988) and its adaptation Zartan as Told to Nick Warburton by Armpits the Second (1988 chap). One story in the animated film Princes and Princesses (2000) involves princes who were turned into ants.
In the future, Time Travellers discover that Earth is now controlled by enlarged ants using humans as slaves in Francis Flagg's "The Master Ants" ( May 1928 Amazing); a similar scenario in the Far Future unfolds in Frank Belknap Long's "Green Glory" (January 1935 Astounding). Ants inhabit combative machines in the future encountered by time travellers in John Wyndham's "Wanderers of Time" (March 1933 Wonder Stories as by John B Harris; chap 1945). Intelligent ants rule the world in one future described in David R Daniels's "The Branches of Time" (August 1935 Wonder Stories), while enlarged, intelligent ants are also one element in the complex future world of Stanton A Coblentz's After 12,000 Years (Spring 1929 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 1950). Purportedly extinct ants are a threat to humanity in Alfredo Leal Cortés's "Orestes" (in El cuento mexicano del siglo XX ["The Mexican Short Story of the Twentieth Century"] [anth 1964] ed Emmanuel Carballo). Ants are among other evolved insects that become dominant after the end of humanity in Thomas S Gardner's "The Insect World" (April 1935 Wonder Stories), while in Professor L Detre's Két Világ Harca: Fantasztikus Regény (1935; trans as Kampf Zweier Welten 1935; trans from German as War of Two Worlds 1936) intelligent ants and termites successfully demand to control half of the planet Earth. In Clifford D Simak's story cycle City (fixup 1952; exp 1981), ants made intelligent by the intervention of a Mutant are allowed to inherit the Earth when the intelligent Dogs now governing a Utopian civilization of animals decide that they should all travel to another world, declining to take the advice of a surviving human to Poison the intrusive ants. A future man also Uplifts ants to be humanity's successors in Eric Frank Russell's "Mana" (December 1937 Astounding). In the distant future of Clark Thomas Carlton's Prophets of the Ghost Ants (2011; rev 2017) and its sequel, humans have grown tiny and work harmoniously with enlarged ants and other insects.
It is more common to feature enormous ants as humanity's adversaries; indeed, they were identified as a key sf Cliché in John Silbersack's spoof "No-Frills Book" Science Fiction (1981), with a blurb announcing that it is "Complete with everything: aliens, giant ants, space cadets, robots, one plucky girl." Fulfilling the blurb's promise, Silbersack's brief novel describes giant ants on an alien planet attacking the protagonists. The protagonist of Frederik Pohl's "Let the Ants Try" (Winter 1949 Planet Stories), disgusted with humanity and our wars, uses a Time Machine to transport ant colonies 40 million years into the past in hope that Evolution will create a common enemy against which humanity will unite; his scheme is unfortunately too successful. Intelligent, inimical giant ants are found on Venus in Ludwig Anton's Brücken über den Weltraum (1922; trans by Konrad Schmidt as "Interplanetary Bridges" Winter 1933 Wonder Stories Quarterly); Ralph Milne Farley's The Radio Man (28 June-19 July 1924 Argosy; 1948; vt An Earthman on Venus 1950) and its sequels; and Otis Adelbert Kline's The Planet of Peril (20 July-24 August 1929 Argosy; 1929; rev vt as Planet of Peril 1961) and its sequels. Mars is the home of hostile giant ants in Frank A Ridley's The Green Machine (1926) and Derek Ironside's "A Message from Mars" (November 1930 Weird Tales). Ants that are enormous but not intelligent inhabit Jupiter in John Jacob Astor's A Journey in Other Worlds: A Romance of the Future (1894).
Works about giant ants encountered on Earth include Erle Stanley Gardner's "Rain Magic" (20 October 1928 Argosy), about giant ants found in Africa, while giant ants invade the US, threatening to destroy humanity, in Louise Rice and Tonjoroff-Roberts's "The Astounding Enemy" (Winter 1930 Amazing Stories Quarterly). London is demolished by giant ants in R Coutts Armour's "De Profundis" (15 November 1914 Red Magazine). Evolved ants are among the alien races oppressing humanity in Freidrich Freksa's Druso: Oder die gestohlene Menschheit ["Druso, or The Stolen Mankind"] (1931; trans Fletcher Pratt as "Druso" 1934 Wonder Stories), and giant ants are found imprisoning people in Jim Vanny's "The War of the Great Ants" (July 1930 Wonder Stories). A passing Comet delivers eggs to Earth that hatch into dangerous and intelligent giant ants in H Thompson Rich's "Spawn of the Comet" (November 1931 Amazing), and R H Romans's "The War of the Planets" (Summer 1930 Wonder Stories Quarterly) describes giant ants from Mars who invade Earth. In Abner J Gelula's "Peace Weapons" (June 1934 Amazing), a scientist's discovery creates enormous ants that are then deployed in warfare. Huge insects including ants inhabit Antarctica in A C Stimson's "The Land of Mighty Insects" (April 1934 Wonder Stories). Giant ants are encountered in an underground realm in Sean O'Larkin's "Morgo the Mighty" (second August-first October 1930 Popular Magazine) and giant ants emerge from a similar enclave to threaten humanity in Alfred Gordon Bennett's The Demigods (1939). They are found inside a Hollow Earth in Vladimir A Obruchev's Plutoniia (1915; 1924; trans B Pearce as Plutonia 1957) and in Edgar Rice Burroughs's sixth Pellucidar novel, Land of Terror (1944), where a race of giant ants practices Agriculture and captures humans to feed their queen. Unusually unthreatening giant ants are encountered in Bernard Cronin's The Ant Men (24 December 1954-? The Young Sun; 1955).
The classic film about giant ants is of course Them! (1954), wherein they are created by an atomic bomb in New Mexico and move on to threaten Los Angeles; Edward Bryant pays tribute to the film in his story "giANTS" (August 1979 Analog), in which a man dreams himself into the film and realizes the problem the world is facing with aggressive insects can be dealt with by enlarging them and rendering them immobile because of the weight of their exoskeletons (a consequence of the inverse-square law, which the film and all stories about giant ants ignore). Also, when Wells's story was filmed as Empire of the Ants (1977), novelized by Lindsay West, the menacing ants in the Amazon were now enormous due to exposure to radioactivity. The film-within-a-film of the comedy Matinee (1993), "Mant", depicts a man being transformed into an enormous ant. Other comedies with dangerous giant ants, obviously influenced by Them!, include GiAnts (2007) and Dead Ant (2017). The Videogames It Came from the Desert (1988) and Antheads: It Came from the Desert II (1990), featuring conflicts with giant ants, also inspired the film It Came from the Desert (2018). Giant ants make an appearance in the animated series Phineas and Ferb (2007-2015) and are antagonists in the video games Ant Attack (1983) and The Savage Empire (1990) (see Worlds of Ultima). (There are other videogames about ants that have few or no fantastic elements.)
In comics, Superman had two encounters with giant ants: in Bill Finger and Wayne Boring's "The Defeat of Superman" (January 1957 Superman), he battles an enormous ant created by Supervillain Lex Luthor, and in Leo Dorfman and Al Plastino's "The Invasion of the Super-Ants!" (January 1963 Action Comics), he communicates with giant ants from another planet by temporarily transforming himself to have an ant's head. In Robert Bernstein and Curt Swan's story "King of the Giant Ants" (July 1961 Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen), Jimmy Olsen dreams about battling Superman while astride a giant ant. The space adventurer Spacehawk travels through a tunnel created by giant ants in Basil Wolverton's comic strip Spacehawk (1940-1942 Target Comics). Plastic Man defeats giant ants by making himself into an anteater in an unknown author and artist's "Giant Ants" (September 1952 Plastic Man). A scientist's formula creates menacing giant ants in Carl Mernling and Bob Forgione's "Flower of Evil" (September 1953 The Thing), while intelligent giant ants have taken control of a future Earth in Richard Kahn and Al Gordon's "The Uninvited" (March 1953 Beware). Invading giant ants from space are only defeated after a prolonged conflict in an unknown author and Harry Harrison's "World War III with the Ants" (October 1951 Captain Science), while large carnivorous ants on an island devour shipwrecked people in an unknown author and artist's "Black Death" (November 1953 Fantastic Fears). In an unknown author and Charles Stern's"Turnabout" (December 1952 Weird Mysteries), a man who torments ants receives his comeuppance when he lands on a planet inhabited by giant ants – a scenario also played out on Earth in Betsy Haynes's Attack of the Killer Ants (1996). Giant ants are discovered beneath a subway in an unknown author and Stern's "The Disbeliever" (February 1953 Weird Mysteries), while jungle woman Taanda must deal with enlarged ants in an unknown author and Gene Fawcette's "The Ant Invasion!" (May 1952 White Princess of the Jungle). The title of an unknown author and Ruben Moreira's "We Fought the Giant Ants!" (April 1961 My Greatest Adventure) explains its story about battling against artificially created giant ants.
Humans who become tiny regularly socialize with ants, as in Francis Rufus Bellamy's Atta: A Novel of a Most Extraordinary Adventure (1953), wherein a shrunken man bonds with an ant named Atta while facing opposition from other ants. A shrunken man also explores the world of ants in Ben Hecht's "The Adventures of Professor Emmett" (in A Book of Miracles coll 1939). In his early adventures, the Marvel Comics Superhero Ant-Man recruited ants to assist him, including a trusted companion named Korr, though he quickly stopped associating with ants as his character became Giant-Man with other changes to come. (Batman also faced a supervillain named Ant-Man who was merely shrunken in size and had no interactions with ants. The same is true of the quarter-human-size "Ant Men" of Burroughs's Tarzan and the Ant Men [2 February-15 March 1924 Argosy; cut text 1924].) In Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), a Scientist's children are reduced in size and become lost in their backyard, where they befriend an ant they call Antie. A boy is also shrunken and comes to bond with ants in the animated film The Ant Bully (2006). Interestingly, both Korr and Antie are soon killed off, suggesting that even ants portrayed as allies will never inspire the same sort of affection as Cats and Dogs, who are rarely allowed to die in fiction. Anthropomorphized ants figure in two animated films, Antz (1998) and A Bug's Life (1998), that should be regarded as Fantasies.
Unusual sf stories about ants include Roy L McCardell's "The Hybrid Hyperborean Ant" (December 1910 New Broadway Magazine) which describes a man who breeds a new kind of delicious ant to serve as a source of food but has his dreams shattered when anteaters devour his creations, and Chauncey Thomas's "The Lost Art" (August 1902 Argosy), about a man who trains ants to find gold. Bob Olsen, long fascinated by ants, wrote two stories, The Ant With a Human Soul (Spring/Summer 1932 Amazing Stories Quarterly; 2016 dos) and "Peril Among the Drivers" (March 1934 Amazing), in which humans use different means to inhabit the mind of an ant and experience its lifestyle; a third Olsen story, "Six-Legged Gangsters" (June 1935 Amazing), simply recounts an incident in the life of an anthropomorphized ant. Virulent virtual ants are unleashed into the Internet in Rudy Rucker's The Hacker and the Ants (1994). In Wang Jinkang's Yi Sheng ["Ant Life"] (2007), a drug promoting Altruism is obtained from ants. Two interesting nonfictional portrayals of ant intelligence are found in Julian Huxley's "Philosophic Ants: A Biologic Fantasy" (read May 1922 to the Heretics Club, Cambridge; 1922 Cornhill Magazine) and Douglas Hofstadter's Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979).
In a sense, it is not surprising that ants are so ubiquitous in sf, since authors can be inclined to write about the things they see every day, and ants are probably the animals that almost every person has most often had to deal with, however unhappily. Their indefatigable determination to intrude upon our lives also makes it natural to suspect that they will someday become humanity's masters, or successors. But sf offers many inspiring stories about valiant humans overcoming ant adversaries, regardless of their size or intelligence. [GW]
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