Wanna know what burning ants smell like?
They smell like a toaster oven that hasn’t been cleaned for a while and is set to "high".
I know this, because my office smells like burning toast, and it’s coming from our new printer, and climbing up our new printer’s power cable is a line of ants, and they are marching lockstep into the printer, and the printer is hot, and I need not, I think, finish this thought for you.
The printer is brand new, but I suspect we’ll have to get it replaced, or at least cleaned. Many ants were carrying eggs with them, so they probably thought that this would make a nice new home for their colony.
Obviously, there are still a few bugs in the system.
OK, so which one of you science nerds gets the title of this, eh?
October 9th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Oops! With all the weirdness going on, it seems commenting was turned off. It’s back on now.
October 9th, 2006 at 5:50 pm
The wierd thing about this post is that I just read this fact last night in “Lives of a Cell” by Lewis Thomas. Apparently all humans are able to smell ants, and that there is a specific word for this smell: pismire.
So thanks Phil, I now know that pismire smells like a dirty, overheated toaster oven!
October 9th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Hmm, rereading your post I guess that’s what hot pismire smells like, or maybe just burning ants. I guess the search for pismire goes on.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
If I know that ants produce formic acid, does that make me a science nerd?
October 9th, 2006 at 6:06 pm
‘OK, so which one of you science nerds gets the title of this, eh?’
Oh I’m sure we are all formic our opinions
October 9th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
If you smear them on your counter, does that make formica?
October 9th, 2006 at 6:30 pm
“Obviously, there are still a few bugs in the system.”
Oooh, that an’t funny.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
They might actually be undocumented creatures.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
““Obviously, there are still a few bugs in the system.â€
Har har.
What was that computer that first earned that term, ENIAC? I know it was some vaccum tube computer that had a moth in it.
Anyway, this goes to show that real bugs still can be a problem in cyberspace.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:37 pm
If only they had giant printers back in the 1950s, “Them!” would have been a much shorter movie.
October 9th, 2006 at 6:56 pm
Well, I have heard of RED ants and BLACK ants
When they start marching out as Cyan Ants, Magenta Ants, Blue Ants and Yellow Ants you are REALLY in trouble.
October 9th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Ed is the winner!
The repair guy came today and poked around in the printer. He doesn’t know why they went in there, but they did appear to be building a colony. He cleaned it out (using an upside down air can!) and we’ll see if they stick around. We’re moving to a new office in a month, and I’d hate to bring them with us!
October 9th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Ah, California! The annual invasion of argentine ants (though not silver, mind you) can mean only one thing — the rainy season is upon us.
October 9th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
Yup. It rained here last week, and we think that’s what started this. Feh.
October 9th, 2006 at 8:20 pm
There another way to see what smell burning ants have.
It involves a magnifying glass, a sunny day and a ten-year old kid.
October 9th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Hats off to Ray Gray!
What was the name of that film, anyway? Second only to “Them” in it’s anty goodness. C’mon now, someone must know. Not giant ants, but smart ones and everytime the humans did something to pismire them off, they adapted (rather too quickly for natural selection to be the culprit).
October 9th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
“Phase 4″?
There’s also “Empire of the Ants” with Joan Collins. Yikes.
Both, incidentally, off the top of my head. I’ve seen too many movies.
October 9th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Sounds like “Phase IV” to me, too.
October 9th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Up the Univ. Wyoming Infared Telescope they have major infestations of Ladybugs. The walls are covered with them upto a 1-2 foot off the ground. I visited them one time and all their printouts were covered in smashed ladybugs. (Old dot matix printers) I think they even have some photos posted around somewhere showing them covering the walls. No seems to know why they do it.
October 10th, 2006 at 12:56 am
Wisconsin has its own “ladybug” (Asian Beetle) problem. Zillions of the annoying things everywhere. According to some, they were originally introduced into the ecology to combat an aphid problem without the use of chemicals/pesticides, but now they themselves are problematic. Go figure.
October 10th, 2006 at 1:22 am
BA don’t be like Leiningen (Charlton Heston)! Save yourself! The marabuntas: “forty square miles of agonizing death”!!!
October 10th, 2006 at 3:56 am
Hey! Don’t forget the “Zanti Misfits.”
October 10th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Intelligent ants? Quick, somebody call MacGuyver!
Oh, pop culture references. What would Family Guy be without you?
October 10th, 2006 at 9:51 am
Grand Lunar,
The first computer bug predates vacuum equipment - it was the relay-based Mark II and was found by Grace Hopper. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
For a picture.
October 10th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Ooh, I get it! I’m a science nerd too! I’m just too late to get it first. Drat…
October 10th, 2006 at 10:54 am
CR said:
>According to some, they [ladybugs] were originally introduced into the ecology to combat an aphid problem without the use of chemicals/pesticides, but now they themselves are problematic. Go figure.
There was an old lady who swalled a frog,
she swallowed the frog to swallow a spider,
she swallowed the spider to swallow a fly,
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly,
I guess she’ll die.
October 10th, 2006 at 11:07 am
Ah, BA: “what’s an upside down air can?”
October 10th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
one of the most pungent insectoid smells i’ve ever encountered was a few years ago when the 17-year cicada cycle came around and invaded baltimore. i went to visit my cousin and the entire city smelled like crushed, fermenting and decaying cicadas. a bittersweet, acrid, smell that had weird top notes of citrus. not necessarily unpleasant but really, really noticeable.
alas, i also was too late to prove that i got the joke.
October 10th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
There was an old lady who swallowed a horse.
She’s dead.
Of course.
October 10th, 2006 at 4:41 pm
Oh yes, I remember the Wisconsin ladybugs. I was the observatory resident at U. Wisconsin for four years and we got those invasions every year. The carcasses would pile up inside the lights in the dome and they’d be underfoot everywhere. Had kind of an acrid metallic smell. Yeccch. But the only actual bug we ever found in the telescope or computer equipment was a regular old fly in the ointment… er, spectrograph.
October 10th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
You wouldn’t believe how many cockroaches can fit in a toaster oven.
October 11th, 2006 at 6:01 am
I suspect that burning ants smells a lot like burning hair, since hair and exoskeletons are both made of keratin.
Oh, and please don’t inflict such puns on etymology nerds. It hurts. >_
October 11th, 2006 at 7:17 am
“OK, so which one of you science nerds gets the title of this, eh?”
Ants are in the Formicidae family
October 11th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Sounds like something dear Dr. E.O. Wilson would find fascinating.
We have a golden-brown ant here in Northeastern Pennsylvania that smells (in its unburned state) exactly like lemon furniture polish. I know concentrated hydrochloric acid smells like Froot Loops (at least it does when it is spilled on blotter paper), but does formic acid smell like lemon furniture polish?