Bug scientists are buzzing with excitement over the new Ant-Man movie. Insect-themed superheroes abounded in early comics, but they tended to lack a certain ... gravitas. I mean, the Red Bee had poofy pink sleeves, yellow and green striped tights, and kept a bee named Michael in his belt buckle.

It's about time ants get some good press. These little animals run our world; an estimated 322,000,000,000,000,000 ants are on Earth turning over soil and preying on other insects daily. This is a great opportunity for myrmecologists (ant specialists) to drop a little ant science.

For a little background, I talked to ant guys Adrian Smith of the University of Illinois and Kevin Welzel of University of California Riverside about Ant-Man and actual ants.

Welzel spent time at *Ant-Man'*s premiere explaining ants to movie stars. Smith is the only person I've ever met more nerdy than I am about comics and insects. We all pretty much agreed that the new Ant-Man comic reboot is wonderfully snarky, beautifully drawn, and has great attention to ant details.

Because an alternate spelling for "scientist" is "p-e-d-A-N-T", we also discussed the ways in which Ant-Man would be mercilessly slaughtered by real ants. Honestly, ants probably would work for Hydra, not the Avengers.

Transportation

Ant-Man's use of winged ants for transportation is highly problematic. The only ants with wings are reproductive males and females. Most ant colonies reproduce in the spring, so for most of the year in temperate climates, there just aren't any winged ants. As long as crimes are only committed between April and August, our tiny crime-fighter will have a winged steed available.

Worse, ant wings detach easily. They are supposed to fall off. Once ants mate, the male dies. The female drops to the ground, tears her wings off, and starts digging a new nest. Relying upon winged ants for travel would probably result in Ant-Man being crushed in a frantic ant sexual embrace, and then plummeting off to his death as the ant wings are discarded.

Perhaps that's why Ant-Man hitched two winged ants to a chariot for transportation in the original comic series.

Communication

Ant-Man has something that all entomologists secretly desire: insect minions that do his bidding. Smith had great insight into the background behind Ant-Man's communication with ants in the first comics: "If you think about it culturally, if you use the word antenna, and the comics are aimed at adolescent teenagers, what's the first thing they think of in turn? You think of a radio antenna if you're a kid in the early '60s."

"In 1958, you have E.O Wilson writing [that] ants communicate mostly by chemicals as a hypothesis. Some of the early work, like showing the glandular sources and the nature of things like trail pheromones, only happened in 1959. I don't blame the writer and the artist for not knowing this, because they would've had to been reading science the year before they even thought about these characters."

The writers and artist for Tales To Astonish #27 and #35, Ant-Man's first outings in 1962, were the now venerable Stan Lee, Larry Leiber, and Jack Kirby.

In this year's movie, Ant-Man's ant controlling powers have been updated a bit; he directs his insect minions via "neurotransmitters," moving him a bit closer to reality. Ants communicate chemically with glands located in or near their anus, in addition to 30 additional glands scattered around their bodies. Oddly enough, Marvel did not choose to update this particular part of the biological backstory of Ant-Man.

In Welzel's words: "Ants are basically a walking chemical factory. There's just glands everywhere." Rectal glands are used to lay odor trails to help nestmates find food; they also summon help when an ant is threatened. The poison glands of ants are also located in the rear, and make formic acid.

The outer surface of ants is covered with chemicals that let them identify friend from foe. All nest-mates have a similar chemical profile, and it's pretty oily stuff they slather themselves in daily. "Ant-Man would have to have the hydrocarbon profile of the nest so [ants] won't immediately attack him," said Welzel.

The hydrocarbon profile of ants is so colony specific, invaders have to mimic them to avoid annihilation. It is possible to fool ants – some predators mimic the "smell" of an alarm pheromones, with incredible precision, sowing panic and confusion. A few spiders seem to have figured out how to remain invisible to ants chemically.

Some insects provide sugary poop treats to avoid ant attack, and ants will protect and carry them from place to place in reward. Does Ant-Man, like aphids and caterpillars, provide honeydew to his ant minions? This question is probably best left un-investigated.

Ant-Man's Problem with Sex

The biggest complaint I see from entomologists is Ant-Man can't seem to remember that all his minions are female. Corrie Moreau, ant scientist at the Field Museum of Natural History, said in a – video interview "almost every ant you've ever seen in your entire life is female." Hope van Dyne should really be wearing that suit.

"Males just don't even matter... They're barely ever around. They're only there for a particular season, and when they are around they don't have the mandibles to actually do any work." said Smith. Alex Wild, ant biologist at the University of Texas, said "an anatomically correct Ant-Man would be a woman, and she'd make acid in her butt."

Stupid Ways to Die if You're an Ant

Some of the more entertaining discussions I've had about how Ant-Man might meet a gruesome end involved the parasitic fungus Ophiocordyceps, which grows inside ant bodies, turns them into zombies, and eventually sprouts out of their heads with lethal force. Instead of a climactic fight scene with Yellowjacket, an infected Ant-Man might just wander up to the top of a tree and die. Some parasitic flies inject their eggs inside living ants. When ready to emerge, the maggots decapitate their ant hosts. A whole host of parasitic wasp species also lay eggs inside of ants with chest-burster results later on.

But since Ant-Man isn't actually an ant, he's probably safe from some of the more horrific things that befall real ants. Probably.

In Summary: ANTS

If you want to know more about the amazing chemistry and behavior of ants, Journey to the Ants is a great book to start with, and there are some great videos explaining ant research and ant reproduction. Ant-Man's biggest problems will be with physics, not ants. But this bug scientist plans to swarm over to the local metroplex and enjoy the movie with plenty of willing suspension of disbelief.