Ants Fill Potholes With Their Own Bodies
British researchers have written a report in the journal Animal Behaviour about army ants of Central and South America that repair their ‘roads’ by throwing their bodies into rough spots to make it smoother.
They found that the ants match their own bodies to the size of the hole they want to plug. Several may plunge together to fill in bigger holes.
“We inserted planks drilled with different sizes of hole into the army ants’ trails to see how well different sizes of ant matched different sizes of pot hole. Indeed, they fit beautifully.”
Posted on Tuesday May 29th
