Armies of ants are doing an important job in New York, by keeping the city’s streets clean. Researchers have calculated that on just one stretch of Broadway they could be removing the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs, or 600,000 potato crisps, a year. A team from North Carolina State University put three commonly dropped foods – crisps, biscuits and hot dogs – in cages that only ants and other arthropods could get into, and left them at leafy locations around Manhattan, ranging from parks to traffic islands. They found that the creatures had removed as much as 59% within a day. “This isn’t just a silly fact,” said lead researcher Dr Elsa Youngsteadt. “This highlights a very real service that these arthropods provide. They effectively dispose of our trash for us.” (New Scientist)

Watch this blog for news of ants with girths of two inches or more, as armies of them, having consumed left-over hamburgers and potato crisps, waddle and wobble down Broadway, massive, and out of breath. Terrified schoolgirls will be fleeing Manhattan; Hollywood will have found yet another idea for a horror story, as the ant obesity epidemic spreads.

Epicureans quietly note that ants are nutricious, and, instead of panicking about armies of the super-sized creatures, welcome them as a free source of protein. As the seas empty of edible fish, and climate change increases the cost of food, the giant ant could be saviour of mankind (anyway, for as long as mankind insists on the tacky habit of eating hamburgers and crisps on the street).