Tootsie pop

    At Hallowe'en, a kid dropped a Tootsie pop in my yard near my mailbox. It took a while for the ants to realize that there was food value in there, but eventually they set to work. I guess they licked and licked and licked like the cartoon owl in the old TV commercial ("One! Two! Thuh-ree-EE! [crunch] Three.") For ages, the Tootsie pop looked largely unchanged, though there were definitely ants in there giving it their best try. Today I noticed that after almost two months, the orange coating is almost totally gone and a good deal of the chocolate center is gone, too. I'm sure Science would be deeply interested; all I need is an entomologist with a good grounding in Comparative Candies. No sweat!