I think the important part of that statement is "examine _every_ ant". I don't think our ant professors have the bandwidth to investigate every ant hill on eart

I think the important part of that statement is "examine _every_ ant". I don't think our ant professors have the bandwidth to investigate every ant hill on earth. We could very well be one of millions or billions of inhabited planets. Also if there are millions or billions of inhabited planets, then chances are a large proportion would have more advanced inhabitants than us. I would guess that just like here on earth, scientists would gravitate more towards investigating the more advanced species with very few interested in ants like us.