Hmm so its not just ants huh? I used to know these boys in my neighborhood; one time they tied a firecracker to the tail of a stray dog and set it off. Poor thing! Just kept running.
Nice. We had a yellow jacket nest in our attic, so of course I wasn't allowed to use fire. We were doing a bunch of carpentry up there that season and the hammers were making the yellow jackets upset. I went up there, commando like, and set off a bug bomb (some sort of aersol can that fills a room with insecticide) grenade-like right next to their nest. They came buzzing out, only to get gassed by the jet of poison gushing right into their hive. Score one for humanity.
Oh! I almost forgot. I used to launch bees in the payload tube of model rockets. Sometimes they made it...
Killed lots of ants. I still enjoy the memory of the burning chiton of their exoskeletons. I still smell that smell at times which I don't think comes from burning chiton every once and a while, but it brings back fond childhood memories. Why did I do it? Because it was fun. It was something to do. It was killing something. The idea of killing something was definitely part of the fascination. I did the same sort of shit with frogs with my buddies when I was a kid. We played golf with frogs with hockey sticks. We'd see how far we could smack them around. lol. Good times. I would say I was fairly competent at killing frogs. But when I did that stuff, I was something like 10 years old. It was fun boy stuff.
I am 21 and I still burn ants. If I see one of those guys in my truck, I'll get out my lighter and torch him. My friends will trap a roach in a container and take a blow-torch to it and heat up the inside.
I could never hurt things when I was little. Even today - unless they're some disgusting, disease-ridden insect like a fly - I can't kill bugs. I liked to take food to the little ants that lived on small dirt area of our neighbor's lawn, next to our driveway. I'd watch how they worked together to carry a huge crumb back to their hole, and subsequently squeeze it down. I got pleasure from providing for them - I felt like I was making them the richest ant colony in all the land. I had to give up the hobby, though - the neighbors didn't appreciate the hoard of ants on their property too much. Actually, I lied. In the sandbox, I'd cover individual ants up with sand and waited till they pushed their way out. But if it took too long I'd usually uncover them. Something about hurting a poor little creature that was just going about it's daily business is off-putting to me.
I have never had a problem with killing bugs that were in my house or near it, nor do I have a problem with dissecting and otherwise examining their dead bodies, but I never have been cruel to them, besides once or twice cutting a worm apart to test its capacity to live as two distinct beings. I also recall once pulling the legs off a daddy long legs. But no, I have never enjoyed killing anything for the sake of killing it, and I will not save a creature once it is in my house. But I see no necessity in, as Falling Skyward say, hurting a creature that is just going about its daily business.
No, I did not burn ants! Who's going around saying that I did? Was it you, Billy? Or was it Invert? I'm going crazy! You're all against me! Leave me alone! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Actually, I don't remember. I burned things with a magnifying glass but I don't remember doing it to any insects or living things other than plants.
I also used to convince my sisters that putting a magnifying glass up to their hand under sunlight feels good. Also that Crisco is ice cream. And that 9-volt batteries taste good. And eating alluminum foil (we had silver fillings back then.. now I got them all replaced with some white cemet stuff..).
I, in general, really don't like killing bugs. There such fascinating little automatons, it's a waste to break them.
I tried drowning ants (didn't work - i used to make a little island for them surrounded by water and be their king), I squashed them. I made a little bow and arrow and shot the big grasshoppers. I collected spiders in a jar. I collected fish with a net when I was young and put them in a improvised pond. I had fish in an aquarium and later in a proper pond. Didn't hurt those but I did disect one once when it died. Do I still do it? No. I evolved. I now kill mice and mouse embryos.
Interesting fact: ants can hold their breath by closing their airholes (spiracles?). You can't ether them like you can other bugs, they just hold their breath for a half hour, then croak. Beetles can do the same thing. You can speed the process up by putting them somewhere warm, like in the sun, as this will increase their metabolism and they'll run out of oxygen quicker. Contrawise, you can keep them alive much longer if you keep them in your fridge.
I studied ants growing up. I also had pet spiders and would feed the ants to the spiders or the spiders to the ants. It's part of a learning process. As a kid you won't know what an ant is without running some experiments. Now we all know what they are, because we all studied them at some point. I don't think it's a good idea to "bully" ants, but you must protect your space. Ant's should remain outside in their underground home, and we should remain in our domain, but in general ants arent a threat. Spiders are much worse. I don't tolerate spiders or really any animal that bites me.
Besides just manipulating ants, it's interesting to watch how they organize. You can learn all you need to learn about how to organize humans by watching ants. If you are an economics major, it all will make sense. Right now humans are part ant, part monkey, part spider. We have some of the organizer abilities of ants through capitalism and civlization. We have some of the communication, thinking, and empathy abilities of the monkey.We have the predator abilities of the spider, in that we will hunt anything, even ourselves.