Fire ants use survival skills to ride out rains

[somdfunguy]

Fire ants use survival skills to ride out rains

FAIRHOPE, Ala. — A scene out of the Brazilian rainforest played out in a Fairhope puddle as fire ants native to the Amazonian jungle relied on an ancient trick to survive early June's deluge.

After their nest was submerged under several inches of water in a park, the ants managed to create a floating raft composed only of their bodies. Chained together in a network of interlocking legs, bodies and mandibles, the entire colony drifted around on the surface of the puddle.

Crawling atop the writhing mass, worker ants could be seen carrying white larvae and the slightly more developed pupae of their young, rescued from the nursery areas of the sunken colony. Giant soldier ants, perhaps three times larger than the workers, marched back and forth across the top of the living vessel like sea captains surveying the horizon. And every now and then, the queen would emerge from the center of the mass, surrounded by thousands of her minions.