Fire Ants Form Rafts (2017)(daily.jstor.org)

20 pointsby rsj_hn5 tahun yang lalu9 comments

daily.jstor.org

Fire Ants Form Rafts (2017)

https://daily.jstor.org/how-fire-ants-form-rafts/

9 comments

rsj_hn5 tahun yang lalu

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!

yonibot5 tahun yang lalu

loved this - thanks for sharing!

rsj_hn5 tahun yang lalu

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!

yesenadam5 tahun yang lalu

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!

lbotos5 tahun yang lalu

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)

igetspam5 tahun yang lalu

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

akrain5 tahun yang lalu

According to the article:

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

Not too much ouch then.

majou5 tahun yang lalu

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

igetspam5 tahun yang lalu

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