What is it?
quicktime / photos
One of them is just sitting there. Do you think it's sick?
WHAT the heck are they doing? Anybody know anything about this? They all just appeared in a glob in my yard and did that for about 45 minutes before pretty much disappearing.
Only thing that comes to mind is a bee swarm, in which a contingent of bees leaves with a new queen to start a new hive. Don't know if ants do something similar. -- In doing a bit of googling, some species do swarm. Sometimes its an attack strategy. Some species (in Africa and S. America) are nomadic, and alway move about in a swarm.
Are you sure this isn't a teaser for Kingdom of Heaven? (Just saw it--much Christian and Saracen swarming.)
It may be seasonal- I just about ran over a similar swarm with my skateboard last week. I have Edward O Wilson's "The Ants" (a.k.a. "the big book of ants") handy- I'll get back to you.
A while back I noticed the book 'Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge' by Edward O. Wilson on Sally's bookshelf. When I mentioned this to title to her, she replied: "Oh, silly ants."
it rhymes.
In this clip they really look like they are exchanging info. But then, this is right near where I dropped a big blob of jam, which could have diverted them into blob-of-jam-behaviour from whatever they were supposed to be doing with the big swarm. Maybe they are exchanging jam! (note the one on the mid-left seems to be cleaning itself) Damn! Shoulda stuck with the Prime Directive. I also fed them some bread crumbs and taped some epic narratives of ants hauling bread over mountains and through the crevasse. But you know, I really shouldn't drop all my work to edit backyard nature videos.
Looked at the big ant book last night- it might be that it is a colony which is "budding"- a gravid queen takes off, on foot, with a bunch of workers, and establishes a franchise. Although, when I see ants doing this, they don't seem to be going anywhere. It could be a mating thing- from what I understand, there are two main setups- male-aggregation, and female-calling. It seems like that may be the latter, with queens on the surface going "here boys!" and everone piling up on them.
ew!
people probably gross *them* out...
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What is it?
quicktime / photos
- sally mckay 5-11-2005 6:20 pm
One of them is just sitting there. Do you think it's sick?
- rob (guest) 5-12-2005 1:55 am
WHAT the heck are they doing? Anybody know anything about this? They all just appeared in a glob in my yard and did that for about 45 minutes before pretty much disappearing.
- sally mckay 5-12-2005 2:20 am
Only thing that comes to mind is a bee swarm, in which a contingent of bees leaves with a new queen to start a new hive. Don't know if ants do something similar. -- In doing a bit of googling, some species do swarm. Sometimes its an attack strategy. Some species (in Africa and S. America) are nomadic, and alway move about in a swarm.
- mark 5-12-2005 2:53 am
Are you sure this isn't a teaser for Kingdom of Heaven? (Just saw it--much Christian and Saracen swarming.)
- tom moody 5-12-2005 4:43 am
It may be seasonal- I just about ran over a similar swarm with my skateboard last week. I have Edward O Wilson's "The Ants" (a.k.a. "the big book of ants") handy- I'll get back to you.
- rob (guest) 5-12-2005 5:14 am
A while back I noticed the book 'Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge' by Edward O. Wilson on Sally's bookshelf. When I mentioned this to title to her, she replied: "Oh, silly ants."
- Von Bark (guest) 5-12-2005 7:46 am
it rhymes.
In this clip they really look like they are exchanging info. But then, this is right near where I dropped a big blob of jam, which could have diverted them into blob-of-jam-behaviour from whatever they were supposed to be doing with the big swarm. Maybe they are exchanging jam! (note the one on the mid-left seems to be cleaning itself) Damn! Shoulda stuck with the Prime Directive. I also fed them some bread crumbs and taped some epic narratives of ants hauling bread over mountains and through the crevasse. But you know, I really shouldn't drop all my work to edit backyard nature videos.
- sally mckay 5-12-2005 5:49 pm
Looked at the big ant book last night- it might be that it is a colony which is "budding"- a gravid queen takes off, on foot, with a bunch of workers, and establishes a franchise. Although, when I see ants doing this, they don't seem to be going anywhere. It could be a mating thing- from what I understand, there are two main setups- male-aggregation, and female-calling. It seems like that may be the latter, with queens on the surface going "here boys!" and everone piling up on them.
- rob (guest) 5-12-2005 7:30 pm
ew!
- sally mckay 5-12-2005 8:46 pm
people probably gross *them* out...
- rob (guest) 5-13-2005 10:48 pm