On your daily walks around your neighborhood, I’m sure you’ve encountered the squirrels that look like they’re judging your life choices, the lizards scurrying across the sidewalk, or maybe even the occasional coyote. But I’m guessing you have never looked twice at the ants milling about–and you certainly haven’t thought of eating one.
As part of the Bee Lab, I have been working with California harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex californicus), a species native to Southern California. They are reddish and around ¼ inch in length. On a side note, these ants are different from the smaller black ants (invasive Argentine ants) that you have probably seen trailing around your home.
Invasive Argentine ants attacking California harvester ant [1]
But California harvester ants are more than just a native species; they held a deep spiritual role in the culture of the Indigenous peoples of this region. Seven ethnic groups indigenous to southern and south-central California have been known to consume red harvester ants to induce visions and gain spiritual power. By 1900, with the Spanish colonization of California, these practices were abandoned.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, while completing his Ph.D. in Anthropology at UCLA, Kevin P. Groark–a lecturer at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia–compiled several historical accounts that provide insight into the practice. These anecdotes describe intricate rituals where young men, and those who were to become shamans, would ingest live harvester ants. Prior to the ritual, they would fast and purify themselves for days. Throughout the ritual, an elder, often called an “ant doctor”, would guide them, administering balls of eagle down filled with live ants. The number of ants consumed was staggering–often exceeding four hundred. The goal of the ritual was to induce a prolonged, catatonic state that represented a spiritual death.
In this trance state, participants would encounter “suertes” or “dream helpers”–spirits of animals, dead relatives, or forces of nature. The people believed these spirits were required for a long and healthy life and would act as lifelong guides, granting protection, hunting skills, and, for future shamans, the ability to heal. The ants were also used therapeutically for various ailments, from arthritis to internal pains.
So, how did the ritual work from a scientific perspective? The answer is as complex as the ritual itself. The dose of California harvester ant venom ingested by the participants of this ritual was calculated by Groark to be a massive, sub-lethal poisoning (35% of the lethal dose for a 100 lb. human), capable of triggering a dramatic physiological response.
Since those who ingested the ants in the ritual reported powerful visions, Groark hypothesized in 1996 that this effect could either be caused directly by psychoactive molecules in the venom or indirectly through a more complex toxic reaction.
Now, a recent study in 2023 led by Samuel D. Robinson, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland in Australia, found that the harvester ant venom consists primarily of peptide toxins. One group of these peptides interferes with sodium-ion channels in vertebrates by reducing the voltage threshold for activation and inhibiting inactivation of these channels. We know that sodium-ion channels play a huge role in the central nervous system (CNS) of the human body; in fact, this is what allows action potentials to send information through the neurons in our brain! So this sounds like the perfect recipe for causing hallucinations, right?
A diagram of sodium-ion channels between neurons in the human brain. [2]
Well, the researchers identify one big problem: most peptides cannot reach the CNS from the bloodstream due to the blood-brain barrier. So the scientific processes of how ant venom brings about the results of this ancient practice are still a mystery. The researchers indicate that more research must be done to see if the peptides of harvester ant venom can breach the blood-brain barrier in very high doses, or if there is an entirely different system at play.
On that note, I will leave you with a warning: the next time you “go outside and touch grass”, maybe don’t try eating a harvester ant!
Further Reading
Blackburn, T. (1976). A Query Regarding the Possible Hallucinogenic Effects of Ant Ingestion in South-Central California. The Journal of California Anthropology, 3(2). Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gr06809.
Groark, Kevin. (1996). Ritual and Therapeutic Use of Hallucinogenic Harvester Ants (Pogonomyrmex) in Native South-Central California. Journal of Ethnobiology. 16. 1-29 https://ethnobiology.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/JoE/16-1/Groark1996.pdf.
Groark, Kevin. (2001). Taxonomic Identity of "Hallucinogenic" Harvester Ant (Pogonomyrmex californicus) Confirmed. Journal of Ethnobiology. 21. 133-144 https://ethnobiology.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/JoE/21-2/Groark.pdf.
Robinson SD, Deuis JR, Niu P, Touchard A, Mueller A, Schendel V, Brinkwirth N, King GF, Vetter I, Schmidt JO. Peptide toxins that target vertebrate voltage-gated sodium channels underly the painful stings of harvester ants. J Biol Chem. 2024 Jan;300(1):105577. doi: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0021925823026054?via%3Dihub. Epub 2023 Dec 16. PMID: 38110035; PMCID: PMC10821600.
Media Credits
[1]: Photo by Alex Wild. https://www.alexanderwild.com/Ants/Natural-History/Ants-fighting/i-pwCnk3f
[2]: Lovinger, D. M. (2008). Communication networks in the brain: neurons, receptors, neurotransmitters, and alcohol. Alcohol Research & Health, 31(3), 196. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3860493/
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