Skip to content

Your partner for Pest Management Professionals since 1933

Crawling the Web

Fire Ants Create Living Raft to Survive Flooding

Photos: Dr. Sanford Porter, USDA-ARS
Phorid flies are used to help control imported fire ant populations. Photos: Dr. Sanford Porter, USDA-ARS

No audio available for this content.

When threatened with eradication from flooding, this colony of fire ants banded together to make a dangerous swim to safety. But not metaphorically. No, these tenacious insects literally joined together to create a living raft, as seen in a video posted by National Geographic.

You’ve got to hand it to them, it was a clever idea. With their raft designed to keep their precious larvae and queen safe, the colony pushes off from their former home and into open waters. Besides the threat of drowning, this colony faced predators from below, as fish began picking them off one by one.

Finally, the raft reaches dry land and the larvae and queen are quickly rushed to safety to secure the future of the colony.

Impressive, don’t you think?