Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Open question: if you could have an army of insect minions, and had to choose between the broad categories of "Ants" and "Wasps," which would you choose? [Edit: "Scorpions!" is both the right answer, and wrong. They're not insects, let alone "Ants" or "Wasps."]

I made up a sheet of pros and cons at work today (both had the pro of "relentless") and engaged in lively debate all day.

EDIT: The lists! (my apologies for lame faux-table)

Wasps:
Pros: Death from Above
Stinging
Repeated stinging
Terror-Inducing
Stylish color pattern
Relentless

Cons: Not scorpions
Easily disrupted by smoke
Nests highly flammable
Noisy

Ants:
Pros: Death from Below
Per-capita strength
Numbers
Mighty jaws
Silent
Relentless

Cons: Not scorpions
With few exceptions, not airborne

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, excellent. I have to go with ants, for a number of reasons, the main one being their ability to farm other insects (and apparently other stuff -- cf. Wikipedia). As a lifelong vegetarian, I've always been inclined to sympathize with herbivores, which is hard, as they are typically quite stupid. Ants aren't herbivores, necessarily, but the farming mode of food acquisition is way easier for a vegetarian to sympathize with than the tear an animal into little bits mode of food acquisition.

The primary con against ants is the proliferation of dumb CGI ant movies.

Wasps are definitely scarier on a one-on-one basis, but not particularly on a colony-to-colony basis. The "death from above" factor is, however, worthwhile.

notroberttowne said...

Another pro for ants: variety. I imagine there's a reasonable amount of variety in wasps, but ants are more known for it.

I would opt for the wasps, though. Being that I'm almost phobic about wearing shoes all the time, I feel personally more scared by flying tiny things than by crawling tiny things.

I think we can all agree that the true test will be in babynapping. All the flying babies are in real trouble.

Anonymous said...

I think ants are pretty damn stylish, dashing in black, or red, or a combination.

I think you should add that to the list.

And now... continue to pack my suitcase and prepare for my 9 hrs flight :)

Anonymous said...

Have we forgotten about an army of Bee Gees (death from castrated, high and sonorous frequencies)

- Jesse (got nothin')