But Shapley was not the only ponderer of the interwar period to conscript ants to reflect upon human destiny. Far from it. Shapley"s generation had gained renewed respect for the creatures. It had just been discovered that they had developed "civilisation" long before us. Millions of years before, in fact, proving that complex society doesn"t have to be vertebrated, because we vertebrates aren"t even nearly the first to make the attempt.