Jul 13, 2017 · Climbing on top of each other, fire ants are able to create Eiffel Tower-shaped structures over 30 times the size of one ant. To gain insights on how to program swarms of tiny robots,...

Fire ants use a simple set of rules to form a tower, with no leader needed, a new study reveals. View video. When faced with rushing floodwaters, fire ants are known to build two types of...

To investigate the biomechanics of locomotion within tunnels, we monitored fire ants climbing within ant-constructed tunnels within Quasi-2D arenas (Fig. 1A and Movies S1–S3) and smooth cylindrical glass tubes (Fig. 2 A and B). We tracked the position of ascending and descending ants freely trafficking between a foraging arena and nest ...

Jul 13, 2017 · Ants Create Sinking, Eiffel Tower-Looking Structures. Fire ants are resilient little creatures. Originally from the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, the insects can...

Sep 11, 2017 · Fire ants build towers of ants to protect themselves during a flood. New research reveals the simple rules that guide how they do this, no foreman needed.

Nov 27, 2013 · Fire ants form a living bridge between a cup and teapot. Photo courtesy of David Hu and Nathon Mlot/Georgia Tech. When this raft hits land, the ants keep building. To cross small streams during...

Sep 1, 2017 · Fire ants made incredible floating rafts to escape devastating flooding in South Carolina. How and why do the ants make these symmetrical but very different shapes? They depend on touch and...

May 24, 2013 · Yet ants have to traverse their tunnels quickly, especially when there's a colony emergency like a flood or destruction by a gardener's spade. To study how ants engineer their tunnels, Gravish brought the fire ant Solenopsis invicta into the lab. Invasive to countries around the world and packing a nasty sting, these South American ants deal ...

Jul 12, 2017 · Fire ants use their bodies to build tower-like structures —all without a plan, a leader, or coordinated effort, new research suggests.

Jul 12, 2017 · First, they wander around without direction until they come to an empty space in a group. Then they position and brace themselves to support other ants clambering over them. They do this...