The empire builder of the ant world. An ant that does not fight its neighbours. Small, pale brown and seemingly insignificant on its own, the Argentine ant becomes a force of nature when united. Unlike other ants that fight neighbouring colonies, Argentine ants from different nests recognise each other as kin. This allows them to form super-colonies containing millions of workers and thousands of queens, spanning entire cities or forest valleys. An ant that has abolished war with itself. In New Zealand, these super-colonies can stretch for kilometres, a continuous river of ants dominating the landscape. They are ecological bullies. They overwhelm native invertebrates, stripping forests of spiders, beetles and native ants. They have a sweet tooth for honeydew, and they will farm scale insects and aphids, protecting these pests from native predators like ladybirds in exchange for sugary excretions. An ant that runs a farm. This triple threat of predation, competition and farming makes them devastating to biodiversity. For humans, they are a nuisance, invading kitchens in endless trails and farming aphids on prize roses. They have no natural enemies in New Zealand capable of checking their expansion. They are a stark example of how unity can be weaponised, a relentless, cooperative machine that consumes everything in its path. Their success comes from cooperation. A single Argentine ant is vulnerable. A million of them working as one is unstoppable. The kitchen counter is clean. The ants arrive, a continuous river of pale brown, flowing across the surface. They do not fight each other. They work together. They are not native. They do not care. The counter is their empire. The empire grows. The kitchen is just another province.