Ventures into Ant Biology

I am used to the type of ants that come with freeway style habits - a long distance, semi-sinuous, bi-directional breed.  These are not the ants of Ecuador.  Here, they apparently come in bands, not colonies (at least from my empirical evidence).  Instead of smashing a generation who by chance were assigned to somewhere in the middle of the long line where you stamp your foot while cursing the presence of the little numb-skulls, you actually can squash an entire community.  Or at least it feels this way, as there is no sign of any more around once you are done and no apparent ‘source.’  They just sort of ‘appear’, all walking in different directions, and then they’re gone.  And then they’re back.