Posted on 10/07/2015 7:09:03 AM PDT by JoeProBono
GREENVILLE, S.C., - South Carolina ants seeking to stay afloat amid flooding in the state are creating their own refuge by forming into "islands of ants."
A photojournalist for WHNS-TV spotted what appeared to be mud floating in Greenville County flood waters Sunday, but he soon discovered the clump was actually an "island of ants."
A similar video was captured by a photographer for WSAV-TV.
Residents across the region reported seeing similar ant islands floating in flooded areas.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology said in a 2013 study that fire ants use their jaws, small claws and adhesive pads on their legs to form into floating structures.
The researchers said the "ant rafts" are strong enough to withstand waves and the structures are able to break apart and relink in different formations.
"Imagine thousands of people linking their arms together, but everyone has six arms instead of two, and all of their limbs have tiny hooks and adhesive pads on them,"said David Hu, professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. "That's why fire ants can do such dynamic restructuring."
Target rich environment.
Marabunta
Has anyone else heard this?
Serious... I wonder how they organized that.
Gas, fire.
Burn them all.
I saw this in Louisiana in the 1980s.
Just pour in some dish soap and they will sink like a rock!
Napalm!
It might work, though I would be surprised if they had that kind of reaction to grits. Ants eat anything and everything they can, I’m not sure buttery grits would be much of a problem for them.
You’ll never know until you try :)
They do this in Louisiana all the time. Whenever we have a big rain, these little clumps of ants float all over the place.
Nuke ‘em from orbit — it’s the only way to be sure.
You have to soak the grits in ant poison. They take the grits deep into the nest because they think they are eggs.
Funding from George Soros.
There are many myths concerning fireant (or ant) mound elimination or colony elimination. None of the foods (grits, oatmeal, etc.) will cause any type of internal problems with an ant. They do not get fatal flatulence; they do not blow up --it just does not work that way! In the first place, adult ants cannot digest solid foods. Worker ants can be seen going back to their colony with either a swollen belly (from liquid foods) or carrying a solid piece of food. Solids are fed to ant larvae in the nursery; larvae digest the solids and immediately regurgitate the nutrients back to the adult worker ants. These ants, in turn, feed other ants in the colony. On the average, each worker ant will feed 10 other ants. This unique transfer of nutrients insures that any poisons or bad foods are filtered out before reaching the queen and the workers around her.
Second, ants love corn! Many farmers have severely damaged their machinery while running into or over large fireant mounds in the fields. Thousands of pounds of grain products are tossed into the trash by home owners each year, because ants invaded the containers in which grains are stored. Ants love corn and it does not kill them! The myth with grits (and other grains) began when the general public discovered that small grains of ground corn (in essence, grits!) are the carrier in many ant baits. The carrier is just that -- the product on which the attractant (soybean oil, etc.) and the pesticide (Hydramethylnon, etc.) are placed. The carrier is just the vehicle with which we disperse granular pesticides and baits.
When people dump grits or other such objects onto an ant mound, the ants do not appreciate the door of their home being disturbed. They then build another door (mound) to their colony, deserting the one covered with grains. Ants have many uses for their mound (incubating young, etc.) and do not appreciate it when you dump things on top! When all is said and done, the colony did not even move (as most people believe), it just built another doorway to the colony.
This is good to remember when using an ant bait: do not dump the product on top of the ant mound or nest. Instead, broadcast your baits around the mound and in other areas where ants are seen foraging for food.
Seems like it would be easy to ignite the “islands” and get rid of them??
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