The Cellar - August 28, 2006: Fire ant raft

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August 28, 2006: Fire ant raft

http://cellar.org/2006/fireantraft.jpg

This page from a bug identification giude was linked to by Digg the other day. The photo was taken in Kissimmee, Florida.

Apparently this variety of ants do this to survive when their nest is flooded. As if a flood wasn't scary enough. But in case you're still underwhelmed, guess what happens to you if you encounter one of these things?

According to this document (bold emphasis mine):

Quote:

Colonies of the fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, can survive flood conditions by forming a raft of workers that floats on the water’s surface until the flood recedes or higher ground is found. Forced from the protection of their nests and left without retreat, rafting colonies are both exposed and cornered, and are thus more vulnerable to damage than they would be otherwise.

As a logical corollary, I tested the hypothesis that rafting colonies would compensate for their elevated vulnerability through an increase in worker defensiveness. I measured defensiveness using the amount of venom workers deliver per sting, since the pain and tissue damage caused by fire ant venom (i.e. its repellency) is dose-dependent. In the lab, I assayed the venom doses delivered by S. invicta workers before and after flooding them from their nests with water. Workers delivered significantly higher venom doses while rafting than they did defending their nests pre-flood. Mechanistically, the unusual concentration of workers during rafting may result in a concomitantly unusual concentration of alarm pheromones, and thus the increase in defensiveness. Functionally, the increase in venom dose during rafting should serve to better protect the exposed colony from molestation. From a practical standpoint, human encounters with fire ants during flood conditions have the potential to be unusually dangerous; not only are large concentrations of workers exposed and available for defense, but they deliver significantly larger venom doses when they sting.

It's a giant mass of painful death. Hope you can swim.

"portly stallion"?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Hope you can swim.

I think that would be the problem.:yeldead:

That damn picture just gave me the itchies.:eek:

'dizzying intellectual' ?

Fire ants are da debil. You haven't felt pain until you've suffered a few stings from those critters. And they swell. And they itch ferociously. I would not get near one of those rafts for a million dollars.

When I was a teenager I sat down on a nest of fire ants or someother red, stinging ant, as I was watching the sunrise coming down off an all night mushroom trip.

kind of a buzz kill

I could go on and on about fire ants. Just leave 'em be.

Quote:

In the lab, I assayed the venom doses delivered by S. invicta workers before and after flooding them from their nests with water.

Get a real job. Can you picture the guy in a lab coat, surrounded by huge glass fish tanks the size of swimming pools, sending out little rafts of fireants, or sneaking up to fireant nests and pouring tanks of water of them? Don't scientists have something better to do?

And how did he "assay the venom dose"? I like to think he threw a fellow lab technician, naked except for a swimming costume, onto the raft.

Maybe he could get in touch with the naked pig lady and they could do a double act.

Quote:

Originally Posted by euchrid

Get a real job.

This is the kind of science that is great at stumbling across useful discoveries.

What if the chemical compound that triggers this increase in venom production is related to adrenaline, and winds up being exactly the compound that heart attack victims need to save their lives? You never know where science will lead.

You'd rather the scientist be stuck hugging a dead pig than working on expanding human knowledge?

Quote:

Originally Posted by euchrid

Get a real job.

Fire ants have been known to kill infants and toddlers in the southern U.S. Any effort that focuses on understanding them better is time and taxpayer money well spent.

Is that a whole bunch of cigarette butts those rafting ants are surrounding?

Those are they fliers, one of the types of soldiers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beestie

I could go on and on about fire ants. Just leave 'em be.

They are not indigenous and, therefore, should be wiped-out along with the current wild pigs that killed all of our FL pigs.

Watch out, the killer bees are coming.

FIRE ANTS! FIRE ANTS!

Oh. Sorry. Habit.
Those things ARE the debil. They leave scars, dagnabbit.