When is it acceptable to commit genocide?

I came in this morning to discover that the plates I'd left on the bench over the weekend had been eaten by ants.

They'd only partially eaten the negative control plate, the cell control plate and the vector control plate but had, of course, fully eaten the plate with vector plus insert.

For some reason it hadn't occured to me on Friday afternoon that ants would eat something made of yeast extract, salt, tryptone and agar. There you go.

So I went ballistic with the insect spray and then spent the next 10 or so mins cleaning up bodies.

And we're nearly back to millipede season.

The insect world hates me.