Giant ant
a giant ant 
| |
|---|---|
| Difficulty | 4 |
| Attacks |
Bite 1d4 |
| Base level | 2 |
| Base experience | 20 |
| Speed | 18 |
| Base AC | 3 |
| Base MR | 0 |
| Alignment | 0 (neutral) |
| Frequency (by normal means) | 3 (Rare) |
| Genocidable | yes |
| Weight | 10 |
| Nutritional value | 10 |
| Size | tiny |
| Resistances | none |
| Resistances conveyed | none |
|
A giant ant:
| |
| Reference | monst.c#line104 |
| giant ant (alternate tilesets) | |
|---|---|
| Default (32x32) | 
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| Absurd (128x128) | 
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| RLTiles | 
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| PixelHack | 
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| NeXTSTEP | 
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| Abigaba | 
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| Geoduck | 
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| lagged | 
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A giant ant, a, is a type of monster that appears in NetHack. It is a carnivorous and oviparous animal that is the most basic monster of the ant or other insect monster class. Despite being the weakest, the giant ant is still a frequent cause of early deaths due to its speed and tendency to appear in groups.
A giant ant has a single bite attack.
Generation
Randomly generated giant ants are always created hostile, and may appear in small groups of 2-4.
An anthole may be populated entirely by giant ants.[1]
Hostile giant ants can be generated by the summon insects monster spell.[2]
Giant ants appear among the a that are part of the first quest monster class for Valkyries and make up 24⁄175 of the monsters that are randomly generated on the Valkyrie quest.
Strategy
Giant ants are very fast monsters that are one of the major obstacles to early characters, and are adept at running down the under-prepared, especially with their 18 speed: a giant ant's AC of 3 can also make them tricky to hit for characters that do not have trained-up or enchanted weapons. If you spot an oncoming ant swarm, you can avoid being surrounded by getting into a corridor as soon as possible, or else positioning yourself to block a corridor that ants are traveling through - you can also use doors to block off pursuing ants if you can close them quickly. Take note of the location of up and/or down stairs, and be prepared to retreat to said stairs if things get out of hand; avoid being burdened if at all reasonable to maximize your own speed.
Ranged weapons, along with offensive spells and wands, are your best bet for handling a giant ant or a swarm of them before they can hem you in, and magic in general also works against giant ants, since they have no MR score. All of these attack methods are especially effective if you can contain the giant ants to a corridor: though their speed is still enough to make them a nuisance, they are not as threatening in one-on-one combat. A means of putting the ants to sleep or slowing them down, such as wands of sleep and slow monster, can turn the tide against a lined-up swarm, and may even give you the room to escape a group of ants if you cannot reliably fight them off. Wands of magic missile can thin out a group of lined-up ants. Elbereth can reliably drive off attacking ants as well and may leave them open to your ranged attack of choice.
Keep any escape items handy if all else fails, particularly ones that can get you to the stairs or off the level faster. In addition to wands of sleep and slow monster, scrolls of teleportation and wands of teleportation can also put distance between you and the ants; cursed scrolls of teleportation can warp you to another level, but are not reliable. Cursed spellbooks can sometimes cause teleportation, but should only be used as a last resort. Upon escaping a group of ants, it may be wise to steer clear until you are better prepared to handle them.
History
The giant ant first appears in Hack 1.21 and Hack for PDP-11, which are based on Jay Fenlason's Hack, and is included in the initial bestiary for Hack 1.0. From these early versions to NetHack 2.3e, the giant ant uses the A glyph and is more similar in behavior to the modern soldier ant. NetHack 3.0.0 introduces the ant or other insect monster class, moving the giant ant to a and introducing the soldier ant alongside it.
Origin
Giant ants - specifically, ants or ant-like creatures that are human-sized or larger - are a popular form of insectoid in science-fiction media, codified by works such as the 1905 H. G. Wells short story Empire of the Ants and the 1954 film Them!. Other notable examples include the Bugs of Starship Troopers, the Formics of Ender's Game, and the ants that accompany Marvel Comics super hero Ant-Man. Like other ants in various forms of fiction, they are commonly portrayed as a hive species, which is a common misconception regarding ant colonies.
The giant ant of NetHack is derived from Dungeons & Dragons, where 9⁄10 of ants encountered will be workers. They can appear in groups of up to 100: twice as many can appear in giant ant nests, including 1 "warrior" per 5 workers; these nests contain a single queen whose chamber holds the nest's treasures, and the egg chamber is guarded by 5 warriors and 5-50 workers. If the queen is killed, the other ants will become confused for six melee rounds before fleeing the nest.
While the giant ant does not seem to be based on any particular species, one of the largest known ant species is Dinoponera, a South American genus of ant in the subfamily Ponerinae - they are commonly called tocandiras or giant Amazonian ants. While less known overall than the bullet ant, females of the genus can reach a total body length of 3–4 cm (1.2–1.6 in) or more.
Encyclopedia entry
This giant variety of the ordinary ant will fight just as
fiercely as its small, distant cousin. Various varieties
exist, and they are known and feared for their relentless
persecution of their victims.
