Ant Phalanx!

Another day at TIPTOPduTOP means another trail to explore!  This one seems nice and mysterious! Wonder what is waiting ahead to discover?

Stop looking up at the forest, look down!  Watch your feet! There's something large moving across the trail. A big snake! No... wait... it's snake-like, but sort of furry-looking, and it's moving, yet without moving.  The brain takes a moment to figure out what it's seeing.  The core is in motion, but the sides aren't?  How is that possible?

It seems to be draining down a hole, like liquid.  The center seems to have a flow - like blood in a vein - how curious!

A closer - very, very careful - inspection reveals an absolutely classic military formation, the phalanx!  All in ants!  Heavily-pincered fighting ants form two bristling defensive lines facing outward to protect the path of thousands of worker ants busy porting food into the nest.  A grand military deployment snaking over the forest floor and across the vulnerable open stretch of the path, yet every detail in miniature!  The explorers marvel, but prudently pass by without disturbing these formidable Formicidae in their daily work - the ants may be small, but they know how to fight!