Siafu

"Big damn ants. Go!"

―Indiana Jones to Mutt

Siafu attacking their prey.

Siafu, also known as red ants, driver ants, army ants, giant ants, giant fire ants or giant ants of the Amazon are giant red ants. They are typically six inches long, with their size and appearance varying as a result of the quantity of fungus they are fed as larvae. Their jaws are strong enough to break human skin, and a swarm was capable of carrying a full-grown human back to their nest. The giants primarily served to retaliate against attackers.

Adventures with siafu

The siafu climbed over each other to reach Spalko.

American archaeologist Indiana Jones had encountered the small cousins of the South American siafu giant ants in the jungles of Central Africa and Asia. Those formed colonies as large as 20 million and once on the move, they were an unstoppable force which, during their feeding swarms, could make an entire jungle flee from their path, even elephants with their tough hides stamping out their way away from them.

In 1957, when they tried to escape from the Soviet camp Irina Spalko and her forces had set up in the jungle of Ilha Aramacá, Brazil only for Indiana Jones and Marion Ravenwood to sink in quicksand, their son Mutt Williams brought them a rat snake so he could pull them to safety and calmed down his scared father due to seeing ants bigger than his hand before finding the snake. After Spalko's forces recaptured Indy and his loved ones, a laughing soldier tossed an empty vodka bottle aside, with everyone failing to notice a siafu ant emerging beneath the bottle, twitching its antennae in seeming anger.

The next day, while Indiana Jones and his party were trying to flee from Soviets led by Spalko in the jungles of South America, the car containing Spalko and her driver crashed into an anthill, home to a large colony of the siafu. Spalko pulled a pistol on Jones and his company, only to notice a rather large ant crawl onto her hand and bite her. She retaliated by squishing it with her bare hand, but then more ants started pouring into the car from underneath, prompting the driver and Spalko to start stomping as many as they could. Seeing the rapidly-deteriorating situation, the two fled alongside Jones and his allies, as Jones identified the ants and everyone started to run away from the thousands of killer ants. However, while Spalko got to safety in a nearby tree, the ants swarmed the driver, who was pulled down and eaten alive. One ant did climb onto Spalko as the ants made a tower to reach her, but she killed it by squishing it with her knees.

However, this affair agitated the ants and a vast swarm of then began raiding the forest floor. While Jones and the Russian colonel Antonin Dovchenko were having a fistfight, the swarm approached but Harold Oxley uncovered the Crystal Skull of Akator before them, causing the ants to diverge around them and created an empty area in which Dovchenko and Jones could continue their brawl.

Siafu swarming Dovchenko.

Eventually, Jones got the upper hand by beating the head of Dovchenko with a wooden trunk, causing the dazed colonel to fall backwards into the swarm. The ants subsequently engulfed him, and he was pulled screaming into their nest and devoured alive. Afterwards, with the help of the skull, the ants dispersed, allowing Jones and his companions to proceed.

Behind the scenes

Real siafu.

The siafu appeared in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, developed from Frank Darabont's script Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, one of many considered for the fourth film. In that version, the ants devour alive a mule, a Swiss anthropologist named Himmelman, some Hovitos, a Hungarian henchman named Viktor after roasting some ants with a flamethrower and the fuel line and brakes of the truck Indiana Jones, Marion Ravenwood and other characters take to escape while others run to the river for safety.

Although the siafu were developed from Darabont's City of the Gods script, the idea of giant, flesh-eating ants in film was considered for an abandoned script written during the early development of the third Indiana Jones film which eventually became Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Siafu are actually native to parts of Africa and Asia, not Brazil, and are oversized in the film. Being an archaeologist and not an entomologist, it's possible that Indy simply misidentified them. Brazil does have a species of ant close to the siafu, from the Atta genus (known locally as "Saúva"). However, these are less aggressive than siafu.

In James Rollins' novelization, the siafu kill the Soviet Driver and Antonin Dovchenko differently and claim an additional Russian soldier who climbs down the rocky wall as the siafu go after the Soviets there unlike the film, where they seemingly retreat after claiming Dovchenko.

Appearances

• Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods (Cancelled)
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull novel
• "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" - Indiana Jones: The Official Magazine
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull comic
• Indiana Jones: Indy's Adventures
• Indiana Jones: Traps and Snares
• LEGO Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues (Non-canonical appearance)

Sources

• The Lost Journal of Indiana Jones
• "You Call This Archeology?" - Indiana Jones: The Official Magazine 3
• Indiana Jones Masterpieces
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Annual 2009
• Grail Diary (prop replica)

External links

• Siafu on Wikipedia