ANT
Formica
A line of ants carries grain to two stores. Not reproduced here.
VIEW THE FOLIO · UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN ↗Isidore’s ant is named for what it carries: micas farris, crumbs of grain.
In Ethiopia there are ants the size of dogs, which dig up sand full of gold and guard it.
THE LAYERS · KEPT DISTINCT
ISIDOREETYMOLOGIAE XII.3.9
It plans ahead, storing in summer what it will eat in winter. At harvest it chooses wheat and leaves barley alone. It puts out grain that has got wet.
LATER BESTIARY LAYERTHREE NATURES · SOURCE NOT NAMED
The Aberdeen Bestiary arranges the ant differently. It gives three “natures”: ants march in line, split their grain, and refuse barley by smell. It reads each as a moral lesson. That arrangement belongs to the later bestiary layer. It is often traced to Physiologus, but the manuscript names no source, so it is not attributed here. SOURCE REQUIRED.
HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE THINK WE KNOW
Isidore XII.3.9 checked in two editions.
Aberdeen f.24v heading, text and miniature checked.
The refusal of barley appears in both layers. The splitting of grain appears only in the Aberdeen text.
Record levels, status labels, the streams diagram and the interface framing are authored by Make It Believable. They are not historical testimony.
WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW YET
- The source of the three-nature allegory.
- A rights-cleared image.