Watch ants make a living raft

A single fire ant will find it difficult to get out of water, but colonies of thousands can turn themselves into a floating raft in less than two minutes, without any of the colony members dying.

Researchers writing in Applied Mathematics have described their experiments to work out how this happens. Since an ant’s surface repels water, if it is submerged in liquid it becomes surrounded by a bubble of air, known as a plastron. This allows it to breathe, but is not enough to help it to float well. However, the researchers found that when a colony of ants enters water, they grab each other with a combination of grips with their mandibles and tarsal claws, as well as the sticky pads at the end of their legs. This increases the amount of water repelled, which the researchers say is similar to weaving a waterproof material.

Although some ants are submerged in water at the bottom of the raft, their plastrons allow them to breathe.

Check out the video below to see the clever ants make a raft!

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