Ant Stinks!

Yea! Seriously they do! 

Did I actually smell an ant?

Apparently, I did --- after I squashed them.

Ever wonder why every time you kill an ant the rest of the ants goes hyperactive?

So here's how the story goes:

During my high school days when I was "active" in guiding, I used to have lots of fun building gadgets (those bamboo/"bakau" structure not the electronic devices) and there was once I got bitten by an ANT during one of those time. My hand was swollen like a mexican bun, it's itchy, caused me a fever and worst of all, I had to get a jab because I am allergic to the sting from the ant ( i think that's what the doctor said :P). So yea.. after that incident, I've made myself killer of all ants, created a pledge that I will kill all ants near me...

No-lah. Not that dramatic ... yet.

My room was under attack by ants for the past 2 weeks and from my investigation, I found out that the ants are marching to my room from a hole in the wall between my room n the room next to me. I have no idea what is on the other side of the wall as I have not seen that housemate of mine more than 20 times times over a year that I've been staying here. It is not that I am never home it just that I never hear her going to classes nor getting out of the house. Maybe when she did, I am not around.  Anyway, back to the ants... I was having ants killing sprees over the past 2 weeks and it has become a normal daily routine to me. After each ants-extreme-killing session, I always wonder why is there always  chemical-ish smell every time after that.... so I made a hypothesis that ants stinks. 

To prove that my hypothesis is right, I did an experiment today. I squashed an ant and smelled my hand. (i know this is gross, but what are human senses for if we don't fully utilize them right?). So, from my finding, I AM RIGHT! My hand smells of a weird chemical smell. So to get more proof,  I went up to google and type "ant smells" and found a Yahoo! answer link with the title "Why do ants smells when you kill them?" 

 From further reading from the answers, I found this link. let me summarize it:

• the body of an ant (depending on genus and species) has an average around 10 glands producing different chemicals for defense, communication, alarm, trail marking and anti-bacterial and anti-fungal purpose.
•  therefore, when you crush an ant, the dead ant voluntarily release the alarm chemicals to alert other ants which will then the rest into hyperactive mode. This is when u start to see the rest of the ants "running for their lives"
• BUT when you crush an ant, you don't just release the alarm system, you also release the anti-bacterial and anti-fungal chemicals (that's the chemical that got them to survive their kingdom living in soils which is the perfect place for fungal growth and that means they keep things sterile).

so some might ask, is it safe to eat a cookie that ants had been crawling on?  

• the article said, "The cookie was probably cleaner after the ants had touched it" and that the smell after you crush them "is not the smell of fear and death, but also the smell of true cleanliness and health"

more read ups: Wikipedia, JBC (Journal of Biological Chemistry)*long article

ok... now that H1N1 is on the wild, maybe we should grow more ants and help us sterilized everything around us. Ahahaa (I AM JUST JOKING) or maybe we should eat an ant a day to keep us healthy. Who wanna help me prove that, "An ant a day, keeps the doctor away"? 

what do you think?