Hi Erika,
I had an off day so haven't been active on Steemit until now. I'm going to start my response to your comment by saying this article was prompted partly by your reaction to my previous ant blog. You were right to point out then that we should not dismiss ants as pests...that they have a place on earth as we do. And so I looked into it and tried to give a balanced argument.
I'm glad you raise the point today about natural enemies of ants...one is actually indicated in this article: the fungus that is afflicting fire-starting ants is a natural enemy and it seems to be picking on them alone. There are of course ant eaters and other 'enemies' of ants. I had make decisions about what to cover and what not to cover--it's not easy. I tried to make this interesting and at the same time informative. The best I hoped for happened with you: more questions. I think whenever we leave a piece curious about something we've read, that's a good thing.
The note that you end on....where do we fit in the natural balance? Is always a good question. I think we probably are wisest to respect life and acknowledge modestly how much we don't understand about its delicate balance.
Thanks so much for reading my long article about ants :)