Raftin' with Relatives

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Ants.
Upon hearing the word you think of the mounds you find in your yard, maybe the red ones swarming your feet and biting you. Maybe a picture of a coke can covered in the small insects comes to mind, swarming with the little guys coming in for a sugar meal. Ants are fascinating creatures that are found all over the entire world. 

Sometimes they are found in very unusual places. One such place rose to national attention in 2017. This place was Houston, Texas.

Houston is known for many things, NFL teams, NBA teams, maybe even stifling humidity and heat. Speaking of weather, Houston experienced devastating flooding during the fall of 2017. This was a result of the massive amount of rainfall that fell during a short period of time when hurricane Harvey parked on top of the gigantic city in south Texas. 
Terrestrial insects are those that live on the ground rather than in an aquatic environment. Ants fall square into this category. Since they live on the ground, water is a huge potential danger for them. They have a very interesting way to combat heightened levels of water. 
Huge colonies of hundreds of thousands of fire ants were driven from their homes on the ground. During the great flood, ants were found in floating rafts in the water. They literally join together to make a floating island to survive the floods. According to Craig Tovey in an Article in the Scientific American, if you drop a colony of ants in water they will make a pancake structure that can float for weeks. 

The ants build a structure using their lives as the building blocks. Kevin Loria explains that by knitting their bodies together, they form an air-tight structure. This allows the colony to float for long periods of time with little to no effort. 
Fire ants, Solenopsis invicta, originated from South America’s rainforests where frequent flooding can occur. They build underground colonies that contain a complex network of tunnels and chambers. When floodwaters force the ants out of their home, they gather together in a very unique way. By linking amongst one another, they are able to build an ant raft that can remain floating for weeks.
These remarkable ant masses can form within minutes. They use their jaws, claws on feet and pads of feet to bind together. The ant’s bodies are covered in a hydrophobic exoskeleton. When submerged, ants trap air against their body that forms a plastron layer. By doing this the ant are able to stay dry and on top of the rising waters.

It is unknown exactly if the ants have a particular linking order when joining together. They form two layers with occasional placement changes from the bottom to the top. Queens and larvae are seen to be most protected from potential predators including fish and birds.


What would you do if you came across a floating mass of fire ants?

Most people see ants as a pest that we don’t want in or near our homes. Despite their unfavorable qualities, ants do play a beneficial role in our environment. Their underground nests help rotate and aerate the soil. They are omnivorous, meaning they eat just about anything including pests like ticks, chiggers, cockroaches, and mites. In the wild, they are known to prey on rodents and reptiles. They serve as a source of food for many animals such as birds and fish. Their presence helps in the ecological balance of nature.

References:
Mlot, Nathan J., Craig A. Tovey, and David L. Hu. "Fire ants self-assemble into waterproof rafts to survive floods." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.19 (2011): 7669-7673.

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