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Scientists discover swimming ants

G

George P Burdell

Lifer
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These ants can live, swim and navigate under water.

"The swimming behaviour was discovered," he said.

"I was actually working with a film crew working on insects in the mangroves and they wanted to film one of these ants and I said, 'Well, lets put it on a rock in a puddle of water and that'll stop it going away and then you'll be able to film it,' and the ant promptly just leapt off the edge of the rock and swam across the water and disappeared.

"We were sort of dumbfounded."
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Mad props to mother nature 🙂
 
Originally posted by: Dissipate
Originally posted by: compnovice
I always thought ants could swim 😕
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They can build ant bridges on top of the water but they can't swim, AFAIK.
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I remember seeing this on the discovery channel many years ago. The bridge thing invloves a whole colony of ants working together. None of the individuals actually swim in the water. They all float and rely on the surface tension of water.
 
Cool! Fire ants can ball together and sort of float through water, but actual swimming is unprecedented. I got attacked by a small ball of fire ants during a flood in New Orleans, when I was working with some entomologists, and let me say, it isn't pleasant.
 
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