Ants can plug anything, even potholes
Paris - When a rampaging column of 200 000 army ants hauling prey encounters a gaping pothole, volunteers bridge it with their bodies so that comrades can walk over them at full speed until the day's work is done, according to a new study.
And if the road-repairing ants - which can vary in size by a factor of 50 - are too small or too big for the job, others will keeping plugging away until a perfect match between insect and hole is found.
The study offers "rare quantitative evidence that extreme specialisation" among a sturdy few with a lot of backbone can improve the performance of a majority, conclude Scott Powell and Nigel Franks, biologists at the University of Bristol.
The researchers observed the species Eciton burchellii - better known as army ants - in Panama, and then created a series of artificial, hole-ridden highways to see how the insects would adapt.
They also measured gains in productivity, calculating that the self-sacrificing behaviour of a few good ants "results in a clear net gain in daily prey intake for the colony".
If 7 500 worker ants in a typical "trail" - a foraging column which can be several meters wide - pitch in for hole-plugging duty, the foraging party can increase its daily intake of goodies by up to 26 percent, according the study, to be published in June in the British journal Animal Behaviour.
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