What Does an Ant Colony Look Like?
Posted on August 4th, 2008I found this very cool video about scientists studying ant colonies. They found a large grass-cutter ants colony and studied how the colony is ventillated. In another colony, they poured a ridiculous amount of cement to freeze the colony's structure underground, which they then excavated.
What they found was utterly amazing. Check it out!
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August 4th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Amazing. It’d be interesting to look at the architecture, indeed.
But, but..they killed the entire colony (at least they don’t show scaring them off).
August 14th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
“… but the ants feel their community is threatened and retaliate…”
:-\ er, go ants.
The size and complexity of the colony structure is a real surprise. Probably more so for the ants.
Would be nicer to examine things without rendering them totally useless… huh. Still, nice video.
August 17th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Actually, the scientists lured the ants to another area using food where they formed a new colony. In the process of the whole thing, they only lost 1/2% of the ants. They then used wax and plaster to rebuild the excavated colony and lured the ants back where they resumed their habits.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:50 pm
That is a great video. It was pretty neat to watch the ants cutting into the testing tube with their pincers. But, I was truly in awe by the complexity of their colony. Simply amazing!