The Fable of the Weaver Ant by Barry J. Northern A family of weaver ants chanced upon a fresh young mango tree one day and decided to make it their new home. It was not long before one of the family found a good leaf to begin the work of building a nest. He sought out the edge with his feelers and began to pull. His brothers and sisters saw him at his work and joined in beside him, adding their strength to the effort of bending the leaf, which was many times bigger than they were. They spoke to each other as they worked. "We must pull this edge up to the leaf above us." "I will lead a group to that leaf to help receive it." "Collect the younglings, we will soon need their silk to bind the edges." "1 - 2 - 3 - Heave!" "You there! Go and recruit more workers!" More of their brothers and sisters came and joined the bustling activity of construction. The chatter and noise of their collaboration created an atmosphere of joyous labour, and soon the leaves were bent close together. It was time for the chaining. "Hold on to my waist, brother. I think the gap will take four of us to span." "Reach out and grab my waist, sister, that's it, pull!" Soon a chain of ants spanned the gap, and in this way the family could pull the leaves together so that the binding could begin. Now one of the ants in the chain had been recruited by an eager sibling who had picked him up in his mandibles and brought him there to aid in the task without first checking if he was fit for work. The young ant had been up all night foraging for food, and was tired, and so as the chain made one last effort to bring the two leaves together he became exhausted and cried out, "Help me! I can't hold on!" "You must!" "Don't let go!" But though the young ant tried to hold on, his tired legs gave way and he let go of his sister's waist. Despite every other ant in the group being strong and fit, once their weakened brother let go, they were unable to hold the leaves together. The leaves sprang apart, spraying the family of ants in a splash of turning bodies, thus illustrating that old proverb, A chain is only as strong as its weakest link The Fable of the Weaver Ant by Barry J. Northern is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Hosted by The Internet Archive, download MP3here. Music by Ricahrd Savino from the album, Mertz - Bardic Sounds, track 7 "Study", and provided by magnatune.com