Ant Stories By Andrey Pavlov

Ant society has always fascinated humans and has been written about both humorously and seriously. Mark Twain wrote about ants in his A Tramp Abroad. Some modern authors have used this example of the ants to comment on the relationship between society and the individual. Examples are Robert Frost in his poem "Departmental" and T. H. White in his fantasy novel The Once and Future King. The plot in French entomologist and writer Bernard Werber's Les Fourmis science-fiction trilogy is divided between the worlds of ants and humans; ants and their behaviour is described using contemporary scientific knowledge. In more recent times, animated cartoons and 3D animated movies featuring ants have been produced including Antz, A Bug's Life, The Ant Bully, The Ant and the Aardvark, Atom Ant, and there is a comic book superhero called Ant-Man. Renowned myrmecologist E. O. Wilson wrote a short story, "Trailhead" in 2010 for The New Yorker magazine, which describes the life and death of an ant-queen, and the rise and fall of her colony, from an ants' point of view.
The Chinese character for ant (simplified Chinese: 蚁; traditional Chinese: 蟻; pinyin: yǐ) is a combination of two logograms that may be interpreted as "insect (simplified Chinese: 虫; traditional Chinese: 蟲; pinyin: chóng) which behaves properly (simplified Chinese: 义; traditional Chinese: 義; pinyin: yì)". The traditional Chinese character yǐ (蟻) used in Japanese shares this etymology. In spoken Chinese the ant is usually referred to as mǎyĭ (simplified Chinese: 蚂蚁; traditional Chinese: 螞蟻).
From the late 1950s through the late 1970s, ant farms were popular educational children's toys in the United States. Later versions use transparent gel instead of soil allowing greater visibility. In the early 1990s, the video game SimAnt, which simulated an ant colony, won the 1992 Codie award for "Best Simulation Program".
Ants are also quite popular inspiration for many science-fiction creatures, such as the Formics of Ender's Game, the Bugs of Starship Troopers, the giant ants in the film Them!, and ants mutated into super intelligence in Phase IV. In strategy games, ant-based species often benefit from increased production rates due to their single-minded focus, such as the Klackons in the Master of Orion series of games or the ChCht in Deadlock II. These characters are often credited with a hive mind, a common misconception about ant colonies.