Nature has certain ways of doing things. It is almost as if there is a template for certain types of actions. If we look at the creatures of this world we notice that although some of them may hardly be impressive on an individual basis, they are a force to be reckoned with in mass. Look at the lowly ant. Would any of us run from a single ant? If it got into your house you might even be brave enough to step on it and squash the life out of it. Ah, but a swarm of ants is another thing all together. Especially if it is a swarm of stinging ants. If you saw this swarm heading for you, would you decide to try and step on them? I really don't think so, you would probably decide to run to some other area and this would be the wise thing to do.

A wolf, individually, would probably run from you if you got in it's way. Put a wolf in a pack and it can bring down the strongest of creatures. You wouldn't want to come across a pack of hungry wolves. I remember a story by Jack London, it was titled the Call Of The Wild. Part of the story was about men trying to fight off wolves and how the wolves just wouldn't give up. The pack was determined to get to the men and saw them as a meal that would prevent the wolves from starving to death. You see there really wasn't much to eat in the frozen north and this must have increased the drive in the animals. Some of the famous Russian tales speak of wolves and wolf attacks. It is never an individual wolf but always a pack of snarling, growling, angry animals.

Even some fish seem to be programmed to attack in huge numbers. Look at the piranha fish in South America. They can strip an entire cow, in a minute or two and just leave bones . There are so many of these vicious little creatures and they get so excited that the water looks like it is boiling when they start to feast on something. It is almost like the fish go insane at that moment and fall into a crazed frenzy as they attack and rip with their razor sharp teeth. For you out there that have never seen a piranha fish, there are different varieties, but they are about the meanest looking fish there are. Why is it that they attack in such large number, how come they are not individual feeders? Nature has taught them to attack this way for there is safety in numbers. With an individual attack the fish might get killed or injured, but by attacking in such large numbers the fish are virtually safe in their attack. It is similar to the swarm of ants, who would want to hang around to challenge them?

Individually, some animals are more of a nuisance than a threat when they attack. Take turkeys for example. They have what is known as a pecking order. The pecking order means that they dominate or peck on birds of less social status. If a wild turkey perceives that a human is of less social order it will attack that human and peck at him. While this might be a great nuisance to a person it does not involve the same type of danger that an animal like a bear presents. A bear is far superior to a person physically. A bear attack can easily result in death for the person. One never hears of mass attacks by bears and thank goodness because it would be devastating. It seems that the larger animals are not as prone to use mass attack as a weapon. Why is this? Nature has a way of protecting it's own. An animal like a bear is so powerful that it doesn't have many enemies, except for man, and therefore doesn't need numbers to survive.

Looking at things this way, it seems that all this has been well thought out, doesn't it? Some animals and insects or fish are given the power of camouflage to help protect them and others are given the power of safety in numbers and still others are given huge strength and agility. Every creature seems to have something to help keep it alive. There are certain types of lizards that can be placed on any color surface and will change to the color of that surface, making them almost invisible. Why were creatures given this protection? Could all this have happened by accident? It would be very hard to believe that. Our entire planet seems to be running like a computer program. A program that is geared for survival.

The only animal that doesn't seem to be part this program is man. As I mentioned before, man is one of the only types of animals where there is only one species. Just look around, there are hundreds of types of dogs, thousands of types of birds, fish, insects and so forth yet there is only one type of us. Look at us closely and what do you see? A higher form of life that can be either gentle or brutal and that exercises dominance over all other forms of life to the point of extinction. Yes we are the extinguishers of lower life forms. Unfortunately for us, we depend on some, if not most, of these life forms in many different ways. We are finding out that life is dependent on each other.

We too used the swarm tactic to attack and conquer other nations of the earth. It was usually the bigger army that won the battle, but there were many exceptions. An exception might be if one army had an exceptional leader even though it was smaller or another might be the terrain. As humans progressed they were able to do more with less, something the animal kingdom was never able to do. With more powerful weapons, more humans could be killed by a single person until it got to the point where one person flying a plane could drop a nuclear weapon and kill hundreds of thousands of people. Even the most vicious animal could never accomplish this. Man is the only creature on this planet that can individually inflict mass destruction.

While power in numbers for humans might still be important in certain situations, it certainly is no longer important to those that want to cause death in the hundreds of thousands..

Photo Source: Clipart.com

Ants
Wolves
Turkey
Bear
Man