Of the original crew, only five ants escaped the cavity, one of whom was carrying the mayor’s head. An ant’s head retains life and consciousness for a relatively long time after being separated from its body, and so, bizarre though it sounds – and how much more bizarre must it have looked – the disembodied mayor’s head was able to address the thousand ants still standing on the dinosaur’s forearm. In a meeting that was clearly far larger than a simple tête-à-tête, the bodiless head explained the situation regarding the Tarbosaurus’s teeth, issued a final command and only then expired.

A crack team of 200 soldier ants now marched into the dinosaur’s mouth and made straight for that first tooth. Though the soldier ants were skilled at fighting, the black worms were many times their size. Owing to their familiarity with the structure of the tunnels, the worms successfully checked the soldier ants’ attack, killing a dozen of them and forcing the rest to retreat.

Just as morale began to flag, reinforcements from another town arrived. These troops were a different type of soldier ant. Though smaller, they possessed a deadly power: they were able to deliver devastating attacks with formic acid. The fresh battalion surged into the tunnel, got into position, pivoted 180 degrees, aimed their posteriors at the enemy and ejected a fine spray of formic acid droplets. The black worms were reduced to scorched masses within seconds. Dark smoke poured from their remains.

Another detachment of soldier ants flooded in. They were also relatively small, but their mandibles were venomous – so venomous that a tiny bite could cause a black worm to twitch twice and drop dead. With the battle now in full swing, the ant army moved from tooth to tooth, rooting out the black worms. Acidic smoke leaked from every cavity. A team of worker ants ferried the corpses out of the dinosaur’s mouth and deposited them on a leaf in its palm. Soon the leaf was piled high with dead black worms, many of them still smoking. Several other dinosaurs gathered around the Tarbosaurus, looking on in amazement.

Half an hour later, the last of the black worms had been purged and the battle was over. The Tarbosaurus’s mouth was filled with the strange taste of formic acid, but the dental complaint that had troubled it for most of its life was gone. It began to roar excitedly, sharing the miracle with all the dinosaurs present.