Integrating data from all continents and major biomes, we conservatively estimate 20 × 1015 (20 quadrillion) ants on Earth, with a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon. This exceeds the combined biomass of wild birds and mammals and equals 20% of human biomass.
Because if there’s anything worth getting scientific about, it’s us vs the ant horde.
“Fun” fact: The biomass of all the ants in the world is greater than the biomass of all warm blooded (endothermic) animals combined.
Here’s an excellent video where a VFX artist uses CGI tools to visualize what said biomass would look like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPoMww9x378
You can go to 6:20 if you don’t care about the methodology used to calculate the mass and just wanna see the ant tidal wave moneyshot.
That’s kinda heccin ant tidal wave
Absolutely, it’s not even remotely a question - the ants would win. Totally and completely.
I read a while ago that humans probably have ants out-chonked since some time ago when we started gaining weight as a population.
Had to check back on this since that little factoid has stuck with me since reading it.
Per this journal from 2022, https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2201550119
Because if there’s anything worth getting scientific about, it’s us vs the ant horde.