Ant Death Spiral

This is one of my favorite things about ants — the ant death spiral. Actually, it’s a circular mill, first described in army ants by Schneirla (1944). A circle of army ants, each one following the ant in front, becomes locked into a circular mill. They will continue to circle each other until they all die. How crazy is that? Sometimes they escape, though. Beebe (1921) described a circular mill he witnessed in Guyana. It measured 1200 feet in circumference and had a 2.5 hour circuit time per ant. The mill persisted for two days, “with ever increasing numbers of dead bodies littering the route as exhaustion took its toll, but eventually a few workers straggled from the trail thus breaking the cycle, and the raid marched off into the forest.”

(Source)

rhamphotheca:

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Synemosyna formica

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thelittlestdrunk:

Ants as Indivduals

Ants are renowned for their hive mind: most decisions are made by the colony as a whole and not by individuals. But when an ant colony’s nest is destroyed, the insects rely on the advice of individuals, according to a study published online this week in The Journal of Experimental Biology. Researchers created artificial nests and foraging areas for ten colonies of Temnothorax albipennis ants. After a week, the team destroyed the original nest, forcing the ants to relocate. As the researchers watched the ants on their house hunt, they noticed that the ants that scouted for good locations to find food headed straight for an alternate nest site that they had discovered earlier in their travels. The scout ants then recruited other members of the colony to the new nest site. The study, says the researchers, shows that individuals play a much larger role in ant society than previously thought.

(via: Science NOW)   (photo: Tom O. Richardson/Univ. of Bristol )

more proof that they’re taking over the world

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