Everything we wanted to know about those offensive glow termite rafts

No doubt you’ve seen a offensive images by now: working red-brown rafts of adult to hundreds of thousands of glow ants tangled together, surfaced by squirming white larvae, floating by a floodwaters and waste left behind by pleasant charge Harvey.

Pro tip: Don’t reason a floating glow termite colonies. They will hurt your day. #Harvey pic.twitter.com/uwJd0rA7qB

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@Mike_Hixenbaugh

And no doubt we have questions: Are all those millions of venomous, severe ants unequivocally all going to tarry a inundate and pierce happily behind into Texas neighbourhoods afterward? How do they do that? And what should we do if one of them floats by while you’re desperately wading by a floodwaters, perplexing to get yourself to higher, drier ground?

Here’s what we need to know.

What kind of ants are in those rafts?

They’re famous as a red alien glow ant, and their systematic name is Solenopsis invicta. They’re local to South America, and they were initial rescued in a U.S. in a state of Alabama in a 1930s, according to a Pest Tracker website during Purdue University. They have now widespread via a southeastern U.S., from Texas to North Carolina. Fortunately, they haven’t nonetheless come anywhere tighten to a Canadian border.

Colonies can enclose adult to 250,000 workers, nonetheless many colonies enclose usually about 80,000.

Are they dangerous?

As a name implies, a termite injects a unpleasant venom when it stings. The alien red glow termite is deliberate “a tellurian health jeopardy due to a assertive function and unpleasant sting,” says Purdue University.

Craig Tovey, a Georgia Tech engineering researcher who has complicated glow termite raft-building and been stung “more than I’d like” says a ants’ poison is in a same family as black peppers and hemlock, and is “worse than black pepper, yet not as bad as hemlock.”

Can a ants swim?

No — that’s what got Tovey and his co-worker David Hu meddlesome in glow termite rafts. “Why does a singular glow termite Solenopsis invicta onslaught in water, since a organisation can boyant facilely for days?” they asked and answered in a 2011 systematic paper published in Proceedings of a National Academy of Sciences.

Individual glow ants onslaught in H2O and will mostly drown. (David Hu/Georgia Tech)

So how does a raft float?

“It turns out that a ants reason any other and a stretch during that they reason any other and a angles during that they reason any other are such that together they form arrange of a rough aspect and this rough aspect is some-more H2O repellent than a particular ants,” Tovey told CBC News.

He thinks a identical pattern be used to make water-repellent fabrics out of tolerable materials that aren’t H2O repellent, such as cotton, instead of out of plastics like nylon.

How do a ants build a raft?

Tovey and colleagues scooped clumps of thousands of ants (they like to adhere to any other) out of a bucket regulating a prolonged spoon, forsaken them in a dish of water, and filmed them. “You dump that clump in H2O and a spreads out into this raft, that is pancake-shaped and about 3 ants thick,” Tovey said. The ants pierce around on a aspect of a raft as it forms.

“And when they get to a corner of a raft, they infrequently finish adult stranded there,” Tovey said, yet it’s not transparent either they’re trapped by their nest-mates during a corner of a raft or either they willingly hung on.

The ants have barbs on a backs of their legs that interlink with those on other ants so it takes really small bid for them to stay related together.

How prolonged does it take to build a raft?

The clump of ants is noticeably agree after 10 seconds, yet takes several mins to strech “a fast equilibrium.”

How did a ants learn to do this?

Laboratory studies uncover that a clump of ants forsaken into H2O is noticeably agree after 10 seconds, yet takes several mins to strech ‘a fast equilibrium.’ (David Hu/Georgia Tech)

Tovey says a ants are creatively from to a Amazon River inundate plain. “Usually, there a inundate that lasts a few weeks each year … so they clearly blending to be means to tarry for several weeks during a time on these rafts.

Is there any approach to mangle adult a raft?

In a lab, a researchers were means to mangle it adult by adding soap to a water. That reduces a aspect tragedy – a force that binds a raft adult — and causes it to sink. But Tovey doesn’t suggest perplexing to mist soap on any glow termite raft floating outside, as a soap would turn disband too fast to be effective.

What should we do if we see a glow termite raft?

Whatever we do, don’t poke it with a stick, Tovey warns. “whenever in a lab we would give a ants a possibility to leave a raft and go upwards onto a rod, they would take that opportunity.” He recommends staying as distant divided from it as possible.

Just perceived this design from my uncle who lives nearby Barker Reservoir in #HoustonFlood #FireAnts on water. Do NOT reason with oar/paddle!! pic.twitter.com/rrA6RUR4sY

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@texasembassy

Why didn’t we see termite rafts after Hurricane Katrina?

Tovey suspects it’s since a flooding during Katrina happened too quickly, due to charge surges and damaged levees rather than rain.

In fact, he and his colleagues collected glow ants for their investigate by pouring H2O into their nests. At first, he recalls, they poured buckets of H2O into a nest all during once and a ants simply drowned. “Then we satisfied we have to do it slowly.”

I still don’t get because glow termite rafts are anything yet horrifying.

Well, maybe a researchers’ outline from their paper will change your mind:

“Overlooking a petite distance and shortcomings in fatty solutions, a termite raft has appealing traits with honour to synthetic levity devices. It concurrently provides cohesion, buoyancy, and H2O repellency to a passengers.

“It can be assembled fast (in approximately 100 seconds) but any additional equipment. It can accommodate thousands to millions of passengers with 0 casualties. But maybe many strikingly, a termite raft is self-assembling.”

Don’t we consider that’s amazing?

• Tropical charge Harvey: Read some-more from CBC News
• Before-and-after photos constraint Houston’s flooding
• Climate change expected helped fuel Harvey’s strength
• Why Houston is underneath water: Harvey explained

Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/fire-ant-rafts-harvey-1.4269856?cmp=rss