January 31, 2024

Circle of Influence
Ajo, Arizona
2024

I was taken not only by how nearly perfect the circle of this anthill was but also by how crisp its edges were. I would have thought that the disturbed pile of sand would gradually taper off rather than form an abrupt edge. But that’s probably just the statistician in me trying to assign some probability distribution to the distance from the hole that each ant feels like carrying a grain of sand. Instead of thinking statistically though, perhaps I would gain a better understanding by reading up on anthill engineering. Who knows if there’s even a book or website out there covering the topic, but I’m sure there’s at least a bunch of biology master’s theses on the subject sitting around in university libraries across the country.