Why did they do that?

I was out taking pictures yesterday for a long term project I'm working on. As I was knelt down taking a picture, I felt something bite my ankle. I look down to my right foot and see fire ants covering my shoe and on my jeans up to my knee.

I quickly slid my hands down my pants to try and brush the bulk of them off. Then without untying my shoe, I pulled it off and tossed it a few feet away. My sock quickly followed.

All the while, ants are biting my ankles. Several had gripped onto my hand and started to chomp on my fingers. I was franticly trying to get them off of me.

Within just a minute or two I had most of them off of me. I killed a few more that I found crawling on my shirt. I had been bitten about eight times on my foot, ankle, and hand. Not bad for the amount that were on me.

As I was picking them out of my sock and crushing them between my fingers I started to wonder. What were they thinking? I obviously had stepped on a nest of them, but it didn't seem I was standing in it when they attacked.

Did they really think they were going to take me down? I'm close to six feet tall. A fire ant is about an eighth of an inch tall. Even with a hundred on me, I wondered why they did that. What were they thinking?

So I destroyed a portion of their home. I think if a giant came and destroyed my home, I would much more likely go build another one. Biting his ankle just wouldn't be my first option.

I finished killing the ants that were on my shoe and then I took the rest of my photographs. It's really too bad so many ants had to lose their lives yesterday.