I failed to notice the ants at first. Small and pale red, they were barely visible on my sunburned feet as I bumbled around the barbecue in what I wrongly believed then to be “my” Amazonian rainforest garden. But the insects, I was about to learn, had prior ownership and they aggressively made clear I was not welcome on their territory.
At first, I felt a barely imperceptible sting, then another, and another until they had my full attention. Like a dull-witted, clumsy Gulliver, I looked down in disbelief to see dozens of the tiny insect Lilliputians swarming up my toes and across the instep. The ants, I observed with a mixture of horror and curiosity, were stopping every few seconds to clamp down and inject venom into the flesh. They appeared to be armed with the repeater rifle of the insect world that gave them an ability to sting multiple times in rapid succession. As more and more joined the attack, the buildup of alkaloid poison turned my skin blotchy and the sensation felt less and less like a pinprick and more and more like a burn. Fascination was now replaced by fear as I hopped back and forth, desperately trying to brush the invaders off of my legs. I had finally realised what I was dealing with: fire ants.
In the hours that followed, the area around each of the dozens of bites grew inflamed and dotted with prickling red bumps. Within a day, these swelled into a mountain range of epidermic volcanoes, each capped with a white, fluid-filled blister. The urge to itch was enormous. I wanted to scratch all the skin off my feet – but at the same time I was filled with admiration that something so small could create a sensation so powerful. My wife, Eliane (Ani) Brum, suggested that perhaps the lesson I should take from this was not just about the wonder of nature, but that I wear something stouter on my feet than flip-flops.
To live in the rainforest is to live with ants. More than any other residents, they are the great forest engineers and waste-disposal teams. There are at least six different species in our garden. (Ani and I no longer claim sole ownership of this land, but hope we can peacefully share the space with them.) The most impressive visitors are the army ants, which march in columns through the centre of our home once or twice a year. The first time I woke up to find thousands of these insects parading across our living room floor, I was amazed and a little terrified. “Don’t worry,” a neighbour reassured me. “They’ll be gone in a few hours.” And sure enough, they were.
Among the permanent residents, the most visible are the leafcutters, who are misleadingly nicknamed “big-arse ants” in many parts of Latin America because their heads are shaped like bums. As the name suggests, leafcutters are normally gentle herbivores. I have seen their nests – which can rise up to waist-height and look like an architectural design by Antoni Gaudí – overrun by much smaller, but more aggressive, numerous and agile termites.
But even leafcutters can be moody. Once a year, when the winged virgin queens and drones take to the air during the height of the rainy season, their colonies are on high alert. Once again I was slow to realise the change. I should have realised when my dog started to whimper and back away as we approached the nest, but I was too eager to take a photograph of the swarm of insects rising out of the colony like billowing smoke from a fire. Sure enough, within seconds, I felt a painful bite. Relative to its size, the leafcutter has one of the most powerful mandibles in the world. One of them had removed a chunk of skin several layers deep from my big toe, leaving my foot so bloodied that it looked more like the aftermath of an encounter with a piranha. Once again, Ani reminded me not to wear flip-flops in the forest. But it was at least only a bite. No poison. No after-effects.
The same could not be said of the bullet ant that wandered on to our balcony earlier this year. This time I was bare-footed, feeling safe in my home, but it was dark and I didn’t notice the solitary predator. The tucandeira – as bullet ants are known in our part of Brazil – are usually hard to miss. They are five or six times bigger than fire ants and their armour has the shiny reflective black sheen of an insect Darth Vader.
They also pack one of the most vicious stings in the animal world, a bullet-like surge of poneratoxin that is said to be 30 times more painful than a common wasp. The entomologist Justin O. Schmidt ranked this at the maximum level 4 on his sting pain index and described the sensation as “pure, intense, brilliant pain … like walking over flaming charcoal with a three-inch nail embedded in your heel”.
For me, it was a more gradual evolution of agony. At first, I thought I had stubbed my toe, but instead of subsiding, the ache welled up like a tsunami as my foot turned red and puffy over the coming hours. I then looked for the culprit, who – sure enough – was still lurking on our deck. The smarting persisted all night and most of the next day, despite my efforts to numb the area with ice. Another lesson from the ant world. Another reminder from Ani to wear sensible shoes.
With the news that invasive fire ants (not necessarily the same subspecies as the ones that bit me) are now being found in southern Europe – with perhaps other species to follow – Ani’s advice is probably the best precaution that holidaymakers can take. But I would not worry too much, as long as you are not allergic (in which case there may be a risk of anaphylactic shock). Despite headlines about killer insects, the risks are manageable for most people and the bites and stings are intriguing. Even so, it may be wise not to sit on the ground in shorts unless you have first scoured the area for the nests of one of the world’s hardest-working creatures.
