Army Ants Lyrics

Tom Waits Army Ants

The Whirligig Beetles are wary and fast with an organ
to detect the ripples.
The Arachnid Moths lay their eggs inside other insects
along the borders of fields or roads in clusters of
white cocoons.
The Ribbed Pine Borer is a longhorn beetle, their
antenna's are half the length of their body and they
feed on dead red pine.
Robber Flies, with their immobile heads, inject a
paralyzing fluid into their prey that they snatch from
life in mid-air.
The Snow Flea's mode of locomotion, strange and odd,
with a spiny tail mechanism with hooks and a protracted
tube from the abdomen to enable moisture absorption.

The female Praying Mantis devours the male while they
are mating.
The male sometimes continues copulating even after the
female has bitten off his head and part of his upper
torso.
Every night wasps bite into the stem of a plant, lock
their mandibles into position, stretch out at right
angles to the stem and, with legs dangling, they fall
asleep.

If one places a minute amount of liquor on a scorpion,
it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
The Bombardier Beetle, when disturbed, defends itself
by emitting a series of explosions, sometimes setting
off 4 or 5 reports in succession.
The noises sound like miniature popgun blasts and are
accompanied by a cloud of reddish coloured vile
smelling fluid.
It is commonly known that ants keep slaves.
Certain species, the so-called Sanguinary Ants in
particular, will raid the nests of other ant tribes and
kill the queen and then kidnap many of the workers.
The workers are brought back to the captor's hive where
they are coerced into performing menial tasks.

And as we discussed last semester, the Army Ants will
leave nothing but your bones.
Perhaps you've encountered some of these insects in
your communities, displaying both their predatory and
defense characteristics, while imbedded within the
walls of flesh and passing for, what is most commonly
recognized... as human.