Did you know that fire ants create towers from their own bodies? These ants are easily identified by their elbowed antennas and a node-like structure, which forms their slender waist-like body. Due to their highly social organizational skills and their ability to modify habitats, tap resources, and defend themselves, they are a known success in many environments. Fire ant are the most commonly known name for several species of ants. They are resilient and can survive floods, droughts, and soaring temperatures in deserts. As a matter of fact, at this very moment, there is a high chance that thousands of fire ants are creating towers in your garden.
In 2017, fire ants were seen clumped together on the surface of the water during Hurricane Harvey, which occurred in Texas. As a child, you probably watched ants tunnel into cracks on a sidewalk or build elaborate, networked colonies in a toy ant farm. But have you ever seen fire ants form a tower?
Fire ants pile together in the shape of a swirling structure resembling an inverted tornado, or the Eiffel Tower.
But how do these small fire ants manage to reach such heights without the risk of crushing or suffocating each other? This question is what intrigues scientists. Fire ants build these towers out of their own bodies in an amazing display of acrobatics and collective intelligence, which has developed over a period of 140 million years when they started to colonize every single landmass on earth after they started diversifying during the rise of flowering plants.
Fire ants follow a set of three simple rules:
Rule number 1: Don’t ever move if you have an ant or ants on top of you
Rule number 2: Keep moving a short distance in any direction if you’re standing on top of ants
Rule number 3: Enter and link up the space you find next to you if the other ants are not moving
Fire ants are known to make miniature look-alikes of the Eiffel Tower from their own bodies. They can use sticky pads at the ends of their feet to link to each other. While performing an experiment, certain scientists accidentally left the video camera running for an extra hour after the ants had finished building their tower. What they found later left them amazed; the ants built towers which ranged from 0.28 to 1.18 inches high and were built within 17 to 33 minutes. Each ant seemed comfortable supporting up to three other ants on its back, but any more, and they simply gave up and walked away. It may prove impressively difficult creating robots that can mimic everything ants can do. For example, try dropping an ant repeatedly from six feet, and it won’t get injured. But try doing that to a robot from six feet a couple of times and the results would be devastating.
If you find fire ants at your residence and need Ant Control in San Antonio, contact Accurate Pest Control. Our professionally-trained staff will investigate the issue and run the procedure by using advanced and efficient tools for complete and thorough extermination.
