Who would win in a fight, all of the lions or all of the ants? (lemmy.world)

submitted 10 months ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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[-] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 100 points 10 months ago

Ants, no question.

[-] lennybird@lemmy.world 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Roaches vs. Ants?

It's probably always ants to be honest...

[-] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 17 points 10 months ago

Probably. There are quite a few.

[-] Bishma@discuss.tchncs.de 85 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

"Fun" fact: The biomass of all the ants in the world is greater than the biomass of all warm blooded (endothermic) animals combined.

[-] Chozo@fedia.io 41 points 10 months ago

Here's an excellent video where a VFX artist uses CGI tools to visualize what said biomass would look like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoMww9x378

You can go to 6:20 if you don't care about the methodology used to calculate the mass and just wanna see the ant tidal wave moneyshot.

[-] Beacon@fedia.io 12 points 10 months ago

Absolutely, it's not even remotely a question - the ants would win. Totally and completely.

[-] coaxil@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

That's kinda heccin ant tidal wave

[-] bacon_saber@fedia.io 29 points 10 months ago

I read a while ago that humans probably have ants out-chonked since some time ago when we started gaining weight as a population.

Had to check back on this since that little factoid has stuck with me since reading it.

Per this journal from 2022, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2201550119

Integrating data from all continents and major biomes, we conservatively estimate 20 × 1015 (20 quadrillion) ants on Earth, with a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon. This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals and equals 20% of human biomass.

Because if there's anything worth getting scientific about, it's us vs the ant horde. Suck it, ants!

[-] Dr_Box@lemmy.world 36 points 10 months ago

Absolutely ants. The sheer volume of every ant in the world working together would be horrifying

[-] Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 25 points 10 months ago

That working together part adds so much to the ants' advantage. Even if the ants' entire strategy was "bite lions, no bite ants" they'd absolutely win

[-] metaStatic@kbin.earth 9 points 10 months ago

"Bite lion and also any ant not from my colony" would also be a winning move

[-] Tetricz@lemmy.tetricz.com 8 points 10 months ago

I just imagine lions covered in ants from tail to nose.

[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 23 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Your scale is off; imagine an Olympic sized swimming pool filled with ants with a lion in there somewhere.

Now imagine 39,000 of those pools, each with its own lion and ants.

[-] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago

Just a casual 500 and odd billion ants per lion.

[-] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

That doesn't seem like a lot of lions :(

[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 13 points 10 months ago

It’s not. But being an apex predator, there weren’t a lot even when their range covered most of Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

[-] Usernameblankface@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Now that's a visual. All the thrashing a lion could do until it dies of exhaustion would barely make a dent in the ant population.

[-] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago

Man, elon musk is getting real weird with his hobby of building pools just to fill them with ants and lions.

Why's he need so many, anyways???

[-] shadowedcross@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago

Looked to see if there was a visual representation of the number of ants in the world and found this

So yeah, would say they'd be covered tail to nose.

[-] PP_BOY_@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

Coridor Digital

2024 marks 12 years of being pissed that we never got the Tether series we were shown

[-] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world 29 points 10 months ago

There are an estimated twenty quadrillion (20,000,000,000,000,000) ants in the world. They could wipe out all terrestrial life on earth if they wanted.

[-] UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Edit: if you see a still image, you may need to click on the gif for it to play.

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

Well, that works for most of them but what about fire ants?

[-] emax_gomax@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Fire ants aren't fire proof, they can just bite you so hard it feels like you've been burned.

[-] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

Oh ok that's good....what about volcano ants though?

[-] emax_gomax@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Thanks for that nightmare.

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 27 points 10 months ago

Easily ants. Google ant swarm animal. But not right before bed. There's a few insects that are evolved specifically to fight ants but everything else is food to them.

[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 25 points 10 months ago

Ants easily, there are literally so fucking many. Like there are some singular species of ants that I think could did it alone

[-] mozz@mbin.grits.dev 14 points 10 months ago

What are the lions even gonna do?

“Haha I will bite some of you! And then sit there doing that thing where I make a chewing motion with my tongue out and shake my head vigorously, because it isn’t working!”

Ants all the way man

[-] 1rre@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 10 months ago

I mean they could go underwater and just come up to breathe and eat dead ants

[-] ThePantser@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

The antlions

[-] protist@mander.xyz 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

You think this lady has a chance?

[-] someguy3@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Ants just because of quantity. There's estimates out there and it's just ridiculous amounts of ants.

[-] simple@lemm.ee 7 points 10 months ago

You know those timelapse youtube videos where you watch ants eating a small fruit within a couple of days? Imagine that, but with it happening a lot faster with so many ants covering lions that you wouldn't be able to see them.

[-] sanguinepar@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Another vote for ants, although that's partly because I'm a fan of the film Phase IV in which all ant species suddenly start cooperating with each other against humans.

[-] adespoton@lemmy.ca 5 points 10 months ago

Humans. Because the lions would be overwhelmed in short order after which the ants would kill each other off.

There are roughly 39,000 lions left in the world, none of which eat insects.

There are roughly 20 quadrillion ants on earth, a significant portion of which will eat live mammals, and almost all of which will kill any ant not from their own colony.

[-] can@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 months ago

[-] DudeDudenson@lemmings.world 2 points 10 months ago

And then there's the argentinian ants just chilling

[-] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 10 months ago

a significant portion of which will eat live mammals

O_O

this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2024

63 points (79.4% liked)

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