It sounds like something that could be the beginning of a wonderful b-horror flick: an evil scientist goes against all of his lab partners to create an entire race of supersoldier ants! The evil scientist laughs maniacally as the movie trailer ends with a child singing a creepy acapella version of “The Ants Go Marching”. The rest of the story writes itself.
But actually, the reality isn’t nearly as horrific and as dramatic as that (bummer). The reality is actually that some not-so-evil scientists in an American laboratory have created some larger-than-normal sized ants, with heads and jaws more than double the size of a regular ant.
Calling them “supersoldier ants” (actually), the experiment was conducted to prove that ants can actually grow this way naturally. They also wanted to show what ants might have looked like years ago.
But these ants actually do exist outside of a laboratory, specifically in the deserts of America and Mexico. Their size is meant to protect the smaller ants from other armies of ants who threaten to invade their colony. Their big size blocks off the opposing ants.
We like the idea of the supersoldier’s being the star of a movie where they’re the sole threat of mankind (much like a RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES plot), but we doubt that will happen any time soon.