^^^ I think both your figures are a little high, but I think we can agree, it takes a lot of friggen ants to equal a pound.
I'm going to see if Wikipedia can help me out here...
'Ants have colonised almost every landmass on Earth. The only places lacking indigenous ants are remote or inhospitable islands. Ants dominate most ecosystems, and form 15–20% of the terrestrial animal biomass'
Well, wikipedia says it's even higher. Says there are 12,000+ known species and an estimated 14,000 species in the world.
Obviously since there are so many species it would be hard to find an 'average' size any with which we could figure out how many in a pound.
Couple other fun facts I remember, ants grow fungus for food and raise aphids like we raise cattle. They however don't eat the aphids, but fatten them up and eat the honeydew secretions.
And of course, can be very hostile to other ants, sometimes even in the same species, showing humans aren't the only ones who wage war. (Or at least battle ferociously)
Much of this could come from intense competition of resources though. Considering how widespread and populous they are.
I heard once that if ants DIDN'T attack each other that they may have done irreparable damage to many ecosystems and even the planet by now. Though, that is obviously impossible to prove and may be unlikely.
Still though, the lowly ant sure shares a lot or characteristics with us, and I think could teach us a lot.
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