As a writer of an autobiography about life in the woods, would you spend more pages describing an ant war or loons? Why? (It is said like this because I have recently read the autobiography Walden written by Henry David Thoreau. According to Google, “Thoreau was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, philosopher, and a leading transcendentalist.” “As a transcendentalist, Thoreau believed that reality existed only in the spiritual world, and the solution to people’s problems was the free development of emotions (“Transcendentalism”).” He is most known for his autobiography entitled “Walden”.) I have no favorite between ant wars and loons. I would spend about a couple pages writing about both. I think that they are both very interesting. Here are what they are and why I like them.

According to Google, “Ant Wars are a direct, aggressive interaction between ants of different colonies. Ants are engaged in competition with other ants. For example, if one colony monopolizes the supply of food, this source is unavailable to other ants – that is an indirect form of competition.” So ant wars are wars between ants or other species that begin because of territory or food problems for one species and wealth and domination for another species. If there is a problem like this, than yes, there will most likely be an ant war between the two species. Just like it says in Google, “Ants may fight to protect their own nests or food storage from enemies or when they try to take over nests or seize food of not only other ant species, but also other colonies of the same species.” According to “Serious Science”, “If you look at Ants as societies, there are two ways that they can engage in what we call “Wars”. One of them is more similar to the way that humans think of having wars – battles among the colonies of the same species. The other type involves interactions between different species of ants. Both of these kinds of conflicts are important to ant biology.” Ant wars are crazy wars between ants vs. ants, or ants vs. another species.

Now for loons. According to “Wilderness North”, “Loons are water birds like ducks, geese, and grebes, but they are classified separately by scientists. The five species are Red-throated Loon Gavia stellata, Pacific Loon Gavia pacifica, Arctic Loon Gavia arctica, Yellow-billed Loon Gavia adamsii, and Common Loon Gavia immer.” According to “Ask Difference”, “The main difference between Duck and Loon is that the Duck is a common name for many species in the bird family Anatidae which go QUAB and Loon is a genus of birds. … Ducks are sometimes confused with several types of unrelated water birds with similar forms, such as loons or divers, grebes, gallinules, and coots. Loons are beautiful, however, they can become very aggressive. It has been documented that one loon even killed a eagle! Now that, is an aggressive bird.

Both ant wars and loons I would find very interesting if I lived in the woods.