Fire ants survive Houston flooding by creating terrifying rafts made of their bodies

2025-04-28 06:02:21admin

Tropical Storm Harvey is no match for the determined ferocity of fire ants.

Though the hurricane-turned-tropical-storm caused devastating destruction and unprecedented flooding in the city of Houston, the intense flood waters have only brought the ants closer together.

SEE ALSO: How fire ants use their bodies to form mini Eiffel Tower-like structural marvels

In the wake of the flooding, as fire ants usually do, they banned together to form floating colonies to stay alive.

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In a July study, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology found fire ants link their bodies with one another to ensure colonies stick together — an action made possible thanks to the sticky pads underneath their feet.

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When faced with obstacles such as water, the fire ants — sometimes thousands of them — kick into survival mode by forming rafts or other convenient structures. The finished product resembles a pile of dirt or wood chips, but upon closer inspection, the moving ants are visible.

A 2011 study from the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS) found that a group of fire ants can sustain buoyancy in water from days to weeks, assembling the raft in as few as 100 seconds. Both utterly brilliant and completely terrifying.