Meat ant within a colony is typically favoured as it improves access to forage, as workers deliver most of their food to the nest that is closest to any site they forage in. At any size, a meat ant nest always has a possibility of dying out in any year, but the site may be reoccupied by another colony. Hence, nests can be very old as suggested in one study. Some nests may never be reoccupied for unknown reasons. The regrowth of vegetation which shades the nest, soil damage or even a disease may wipe out a colony and leave the nest
The Ant and the Grasshopper Dan" (1963), makes an argument for poetry over fanatical hard work. Ciardi's ant, John J. Plenty, is so bent upon saving that he eats very little of what he has saved. Meanwhile, Fiddler Dan the grasshopper and his non-conforming ant wife survive the winter without help and resume playing music with the return of spring. John Updike's 1987 short story "Brother Grasshopper" deals with a pair of brothers-in-law whose lives parallel the fable of the ant and the grasshopper. One, Fred Barrow, lives a conservative, restrained existence; the other, Carlyle Lothrop, spends his money profligately, especially on joint vacations for