Teamwork is not just a human characteristic: army ant colonies will form living “scaffolds” to protect members from falling.
Insects are blind and have no designated leader, but according to new research, they are able to use simple rules of behavior to develop these safety structures without the need for direct communication.
Once a scaffold was built, the worker ants were almost 100% protected from steep slopes.
According to the researchers, understanding how they design such complex structures could help engineers develop self-healing materials and swarm robotics.
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Army ants in the rainforests of Central America will build scaffolding for their body to help them cross steep terrain. The “safety net” maintains its structure even on virtually vertical slopes
There are more than 200 different species of army ants (Eciton burchellii), found mainly in the rainforests of Central and South America.
To traverse the treacherous forest floor, worker ants form “roads” and “bridges” with their bodies.
Researchers have discovered a new type of army ant architecture, a living scaffold that prevents ants carrying prey for the colony from slipping and falling if the track becomes too steep.
An international team of entomologists studied the structures created by the army ant colonies in Panama.
Scientists redirected the colony’s feeding trail to a platform that could tilt up to 90 degrees horizontally.
Scientists redirected the colonies looking for paths to a platform that could tilt up to 90 degrees horizontally, and observed the creation of this scaffold.
According to his report this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, it seems there was a sweet spot: anything below 40 degrees would not cause a scaffold to form.
According to a statement, much stronger inclinations “led to larger, faster-growing structures.”
“Scaffolding is also more likely to form when many workers carry heavy prey objects,” said biologist Matthew Lutz, co-author of the study.
Virtually no ants fell once a scaffold was placed, even across vertical surfaces.
Anything with a 40-degree tilt is unlikely to cause a scaffold to form. The steeper the slope, the faster and larger the structure
“It’s remarkable how quickly these structures form in response to disruption when crossing tracks,” Lutzsa said.
“They’re really a form of self-healing and sensitive infrastructure.”
Army ants are the largest on Earth and each queen has the ability to lay several million eggs each month.
Millions of workers are constantly looking for food, consuming up to 500,000 larvae, eggs and other tasty chunks every day.
Each ant is only a quarter and a half inches, but the feeding trail of a colony can be more than 325 feet long and 60 feet wide.
Scientists still do not fully understand how ants form these super-scaffolds: they are virtually blind, and although they have a queen, there is no central authority when it comes to moving as a unit.
Scientists do not yet fully understand how these superstructures form: although they have a queen, there is no central authority when it comes to moving as a unit.
In addition, army ants are virtually blind and rely on pheromones to communicate.
The researchers, which included experts from the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany; Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia; the New Jersey Institute of Technology; and the Santa Fe Institute of New Mexico: Ants theorized that ants can perceive how much they slip and spontaneously form these scaffolds when they lose control.
Army ants are the largest ant species on Earth and each queen has the ability to lay several million eggs each month.
“Our model closely matches the experimental results, without the ants communicating with each other or evaluating the size of the structure,” said co-author Chris Reid, a researcher at Macquarie University.
“Army ants are small, blind, and have no leaders or plans to lead them, but their ability to generate sophisticated group-level behavior from simple rules at the local level is extremely valuable to many fields. of engineering, including swarm robotics “.
Clearing the code on how they generate these structures with little or no information would be an advantage for robotics, architecture, and engineering.
The authors wrote in The Conversation that a swarm of miniature robots could be sent to a disaster site and form a necessary structure to aid recovery, regardless of whether it had been ‘programmed’ into their network.
Other ants also create structures: fire ant colonies will form “ponds” to get out of a flood safely.