Not like, a poisonous ant or anything, I mean how many times has a singular ant domino effected itself into killing a human. Like knocking a napkin off the table that someone then slips on.

  • Willdrick@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Not quite killed but managed to break my 90yo aunt’s hip. She went outside to take out the trash, saw an ant and decided to spray some insecticide to avoid getting ants inside, she bent over to spray, gave a step back, slipper caught on a loose floor tile and she fell down

  • BoxOfFeet@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Oh, quite a few. There’s a colony that kills animals and people for their bones, then the ants basically build themselves around the bones like muscles. They act like one living creature. There’s a whole documentary on it.

    The Bone Snatcher

  • Karmanopoly@lemmy.world
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    10 hours ago

    Someone somewhere probably tried to poison some ants and their dog ate the poison and they felt so bad they did suicide probably

  • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    17 hours ago

    I’m not 100% sure, but my Aunt Carly probably killed her ex on holiday in 2014. They were engaged and she came back alone afterwards, and no one ever heard from the boyfriend and she refuses to talk about it to this day.

    • CluckN@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      She inherited the rights to the ski mountain he owned right? She turned that laid-back cozy mountain into an exclusive expensive resort?

      • bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 hours ago

        Hah, nope. Nothing like that. She’s actually very homely. She had all these books on myrmecology, but got rid of them after the trip. I think she may have put a fire ant in his food to cause his throat to swell up and asphyxiate him.

  • Brkdncr@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    Carpenter ants can take a house down just like termites. Do that at the wrong electrical socket or load panel and it will cause a fire.

    I bet it’s happened a number of times.

  • Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    I’m really leaning toward zero, but I could see someone overreacting to the presence of the ant and hurting themselves in the process.

  • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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    18 hours ago

    As others have already said, it’s probably very low or even zero. However, if we allow a chain of events to count, then that number should go up. In that case, you could say that an ant was among the many factors that contributed to the death of a human.

    Let’s say you’re tired, driving in the middle of the night, it’s raining sleet, your car has worn-out summer tyres, etc. It’s a recipe for a disaster already, but then you realise an ant has sneaked onboard and is now walking up your leg. You swipe it away, get distracted, and hit oncoming traffic. A truck carrying huge steel beams plows through your 1986 Nissan Micra like it’s made of thin cardboard. Did an ant kill you? Kinda, but not really.

    • billwashere@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      This was my second thought. Some very complicated “sliding doors movie” Rube Goldberg situation…

      But your story is like super specific. Are you really a murderous ant?

    • lauha@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      Ants could have made a nest under the road causing a small pothole to form which cars tire could hit and cause it to spin out of control on wet road.

      Singular ant? Not really

      • phonics@lemmy.world
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        14 hours ago

        But what if 1 particular ant didn’t contribute to the nest enough stopping the pothole from occuring. If it works that way it should work the other way too.

        • lauha@lemmy.world
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          12 hours ago

          Then the supervisor ant and inspector ant didn’t do their job properly or the ant society failed every ant because there wasn’t systems in place to prevent that from happening.

    • Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      I think spiders in cars cause quite a few accidents due to distracted drivers. There must be some people who freak out over ants the same way.

      • TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip
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        12 hours ago

        I know I freak out no matter what kind of creepy crawler I find on my leg. Usually I just slap first and look at it later.

    • Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      I thought the ant colony acted like a soft landing spot. It’s the bite of fire ant and the resulting adrenaline that help her.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 🇮 @pawb.social
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    20 hours ago

    Like strictly a single ant or a whole colony? Because using ants as a torture and execution device was a thing.

    Would allergies count as poison? 🤔 There was a woman in Georgia that died after being bitten by a fire ant due to a severe allergy in 2023.