SOURCES:
"The Empire of the Ants" by H. G. Wells (1905)
"Lenninagen Versus the Ants" by Carl Stephenson (Esquire, December 1938)

DESCRIPTION: “He says they were as large as any ants he has ever seen, black and moving with a steady deliberation very different from the mechanical fussiness of the common ant. About one in twenty was much larger than its fellows, and with an exceptionally large head. These reminded him at once of the master workers who are said to rule over the leaf-cutter ants; like them they seemed to be directing and co-ordinating the general movements,. They tilted their bodies back in a manner altogether singular as if they made some use of the fore feet. And he had a curious fancy that he was too far to verify, that most of these ants of both kinds were wearing accoutrements, had things strapped about their bodies by bright white bands like white metal threads...” (“The Empire of the Ants” by H. G. Wells)

NOTES: The ants of Wells story are large but natural sized army ants. It is theri intelligence and weapon-making that makes them dangerous. Once they take a territory they do not withdraw from it. The ants in Stephenson's story were, of course, just ordinary army ants but nasty all the same.

HISTORY: "The Empire of the Ants" hasn't really ever been filmed properly. Films with that title has always featured giant ants, which is inccorect. Wells was interested in the organization of the ants, a show of intelligence, something these films lack. "Lenningen Versus the Ants" was made into the Charleton Heston film The Naked Jungle (1954).

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