Put an ant into a glass of water, it dies in minutes, despite its desperate attempts to swim and stay afloat.
But it turns out that thousands of ants can stay afloat in water together; they even use this technique to travel in water.
Ants form a floating raft by interlocking one’s jaws to another’s legs, when their nests flood—a splendid example of cooperation to survive. Some scientists say the ants do this to protect the queen—the queen is needed to produce offspring for the entire colony.
Scientists say that the ability of ants to raft afloat as a group has to do with the ‘cheerios effect’, which says that when a liquid touches a solid, the liquid curves upwards at the edges of the solid, creating a ‘cup’. The air in the cup allows buoyancy for the solid object to float. You can experiment with this by gently placing a coin on a bowl of water, and watch it float.
The ability of fire ants to work together to form large structures has fascinated scientists—not just biologists but also engineers. When these structures are formed, it is seen that no single ant directs all the action. Roboticists are wondering if they can learn something from this and apply the learnings in modular robotics—taking biomimicry to the next level.
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