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It ’s the ultimate vehicle for an parking brake flood escape . It can tack together itself in about 100 seconds , and keep thousands to millions of passengers good and aimless for days , even weeks .
Floating cluster of fervor ants are a feat of innate applied science , and some research worker want to make love just how these ants make such good , long - lasting rafts out of themselves . The result mean they can survive floods in their aboriginal South American habitats as well as migrate long distances . [ Image of fire - emmet raft ]
A fire ant raft is so elastic and buoyant that it resists probing by a twig.
A team led by Nathan Mlot , a doctoral student studying bio - inspired applied science at Georgia Institute of Technology , collected fire pismire by roadsides in Atlanta and then filmed and froze the ant when they formed these floating cluster . [ Fire Ants Go Global ]
Once deposited into piddle in the lab , a spherical cluster of ants spread outward , like a bead of molasses .
The ants grab onto one another just as they would any surface : Using nipper , jaws and adhesive pads on their legs , which secrete an oily fluid that give up them to adhere to comparatively politic open , according to Mlot . Once complete , a raft look at on a pancake shape .
An individual ant’s exoskeleton repels water, as shown by the contact angle of the water drop resting on this ant.
An individual ant ’s hard out covering , called a carapace , is hydrophobic , or water - repelling . The carapace ’s rough airfoil admit an ant to trap air travel against its torso when submerged ; forming what is call a plastron layer . A massive chemical group of ants , all link together , has an enhanced water supply - repellant ability such that the whole group can float while prevent H2O from bottom the raft , Mlot said .
Ant rafts appear to gain from their Almighty ' tiny size , according to the investigator .
" At the scurf of millimeters , emmet have great strong suit , high amphetamine and the ability to trap air pocket when submerged , which in bend make their raftswater repellant , " they spell in the most recent issue of the daybook Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . " These abilities will likely vanish at large size of it . "
The ant rafts have their own kryptonite , however : soap . It and other wetter – substance that break upsurface tension of the water – wreak havoc with the heap .
" If you introduce just a small amount of soap to the airfoil of the water to lower surface tension then the flock will set out to right away sink , " he said . The single ants drop off their plastron layer and can submerge within seconds , he said .
you could followLiveSciencewriter Wynne Parry on Twitter@Wynne_Parry .
