Our antcestors

Amuse-bouche: I saw a neon sign that said “Morrison’s,” but the middle 3 letters were burned out. 


Today’s Wonderful Word: “heiligenschein.”

Definition: a bright ring, caused by diffraction of light rays, that appears around the shadow cast by a person’s head on wet grass.

Etymology: Heiligenschein is from German, in which it means “halo” or, literally, “saint’s shine.” Heiligenschein was first recorded in English in the early 1910s.


Ants rule the world.

According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), ants are arguably the greatest success story in the history of terrestrial metazoan. They do not appear in the fossil record until the mid-Cretaceous, and for more than the first half of their history—a period spanning 60 to 80 million years—ants occupied a relatively modest position in the terrestrial biosphere.

These are our antcestors. We are nothing without them. We didn’t evolve from ants, but we wouldn’t do bad to learn from them.

Ants disperse seeds, get rid of smaller pests, and aerate soil. Plants and animals would suffer if ants were to disappear. Nothing would be the same without our antcestors.


Answer to Saturday’s riddle:

Choir


A+

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