Fire Ants Form Rafts (2017)

daily.jstor.org

20 points·rsj_hn··9 comments

HN removed a leading "how", which in this case hurt the title. It's a fascinating research article -- the link itself is just a few paragraphs but it links to the full paper which is free!

loved this - thanks for sharing!

There are also a bunch of youtube videos about this Georgia Tech research. This is a good research presentation going over the physics of ant-rafts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORPEL30Wrzk

What's cool is how the ants keep airbubbles around them so if you push the whole raft underwater, it turns into a ball and keeps an air bubble around it. Really amazing stuff!

Great talk, thank you! David Hu talking about how animals repel water: 1. ant rafts, water-repellent surfaces, surface tension 2. mosquitos vs water drops, 3. mammals shaking off water. Covers a lot of fascinating ground. (It's not a great quality video but he shows a lot of videos too which are mostly visible enough.) David seems to have qualifications in biology, mathematics and engineering!

If you want to see the ants in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ilnv_YKgHog

(The narration can be a little campy but I think HN would enjoy)

Can confirm. Little floating islands of pain. Very ouch.

According to the article:

"When using mandibles, the ants are careful to avoid hurting each other."

Not too much ouch then.

I read it as GP having run into one and being bitten.

Yes. Flooding on my lot. Trying to get the pigs to dry ground. Floating islands of fire ants.

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