EPILOGUE

Clover’s archive ends there.

Many of our researchers were left unsure what to make of this archive once we read through it. To think that a series of events like this had taken place, let alone were ever possible within the entomological field, all captured entirely by one single ant through such an astonishing level of detail, had reached a fascination throughout the entire field of science, and eventually into one grown beyond it, inviting perspectives among different branches of knowledge as well.

Our best minds quickly fell into debate over whether the events that this insect, Clover, had preserved for our deliberation were either absolutely fictional, or matters of truth, or somewhere in between.

Many of us argued for a dismissal of her pheromone report, that it would be absolutely impossible for a single ant to hold any capacity for knowledge to the point where it could name itself, name others, or show a heightened awareness of the philosophies harbored by other insects or living organisms within their forest.

Alternatively, other researchers, such as myself, stated that this had to be a true, fantastic occurrence, thereby redefining how we were to understand complex interactions among insects going forward. Within this camp of researchers stating this had to be a true occurrence, there had been internal debate on whether this capacity was merely innate to Clover’s own self, or a quality of other ants using their full capacity for circumstantial knowledge combined with their collective memory.

Since none of us could be sure without a definitive conclusion, further researchers were sent once again to the exact location of these detailed events, to verify as many facts as possible, and we came away absolutely amazed.

To this day, the cottonwood tree, defined scientifically as Populus deltoides, described in Clover’s pheromone report, did, in fact, contain a hollow tree trunk at this location, remarkably similar to what she described. Along with this, the tree is currently populated by not only Lasius niger (black garden ants), but also Solenopsis invicta (red imported fire ants), matching perfectly with what Clover had described in the closing remarks of her report. There have also been trace findings of Corvus ossifragus (fish crows), along with Latrodectus mactans (black widow spiders) within this cottonwood tree. Upon their appearance, among the presence of these ants, the behavior demonstrated was not of any confrontation, but instead of peace, or ignorance. Additionally, after taking a sample from the hollow trunk, we discovered many traces of expired Coccinellidae (ladybug) life, dating back to over six decades.

The ant colony itself, of course, contains traces of Lasius niger and Solenopsis invicta as well. The willow tree, now inhabited by those same ants, was proven to once contain traces of Leucoma salicis (white satin moth), and the nest that once housed several hundred species of Hymenoptera (parasitoids) now contain no trace of life whatsoever, since 1961, with only Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies) taking up that space.

Every single one of these observations matched exactly with what Clover described in her pheromone archive.

After all of these facts came to light, and with no evidence to suggest otherwise, our debating had officially been put to rest, leaving us to marvel at the incredible weight of these findings, and the implications they held for interpreting interspecies interaction across environments as a whole, within the field of science.

But throughout all this, with all these insects on equal ground now, one anomaly regarding this archive still remained:

To this day, none of us – not even the most knowledgeable, nor the most diligent, among all our researchers – have been able to definitively state how Clover, or her queen, or her colony, could have obtained ANY of this information in the first place.