
A Floating Mass of Fire Ants in Texas - azuajef
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/08/fire-ants-flooding-hurricane-harvey/538365/?single_page=true
======
cyberferret
The programming of nature has always fascinated me... Animals and insects
always seem to have some mysterious ways of handling environmental calamities
and surviving.

I recall an incident a few years ago here where I live in Australia. We live
close to a series of cliffs overlooking a beach, and I walk along those cliffs
every morning. There was one day when I noticed strange lumps on the grass and
walking track. Upon closer observation, I saw that these were hundreds, nay,
_thousands_ of hermit crabs, and they were crawling across the ground and
heading for every tree and bush in the vicinity, then _climbing_ up them as
high as they could.

I had NEVER seen hermit crabs do this before.

Then, two days later, we had a huge storm hit, and combined with unusually
high tides, it ended up with most of the cliff top areas being flooded or
overrun with water.

How on earth did all these hermit crabs _know_ that this was about to happen
48 hours in advance of the event?? How did they know that they had to climb
the cliffs and seek out higher ground within the trees and bushes there?

There must be an amazing environmental consciousness just thrumming along
outside of 'civilised' human perception that I wish we could tap back into...

~~~
zeta0134
So many birds and insects seem to be sensitive to the magnetic forces deep
within the planet. I've never met a human being who was consciously aware of
these forces, but I've met plenty of spiritualists who called them something
else. Ask any old person whose body reacts to pressure changes in the weather,
and they'll point out which bones ache when a storm is approaching. They're
usually right.

As humans, we brush it off. It's just a feeling, or we're having a bad
headache, and need to take some medicine. To a small insect whose entire world
can change in a flash though, these signals are a monumentally important part
of how they sense the world. Especially I think in absence of more complex
visual perception that we humans use to bridge the gap.

Nature is amazing! The more we study it, the less we realize we actually know.

~~~
cyberferret
I do recall reading about an experiment many years ago where a group of
university students were blindfolded and taken to a remote hill outside of
their town. They were then (still blindfolded) asked to point to their homes,
and it turns out that most of them managed to point fairly accurately in the
direction where they lived.

No idea of the validity or scientific basis for that 'experiment', but as you
mentioned - that mysterious ability for older people to 'feel' weather changes
in parts of their bodies, or that 'gut feeling' that a lot of people get when
they are being watched by hostile eyes... There is a lot more going on to our
unconscious perception of the world that we realise.

There are some facets however, that are easily explainable, such as people
"smelling the rain coming" when it is in fact the higher moisture content in
the air making our smell receptors work better at smelling the everyday
environment around us... But there are some phenomena which aren't as easily
explained.

I hope that we can begin to be more adept at recognising the unconscious
prompts, which I think will make us much better are relating to the world
around us.

~~~
pvaldes
> They were asked to point to their homes and most of them managed to point
> fairly accurately in the direction where they lived.

Blind people can still hear, smell and perceive the wind direction and use it
to make a mental map of their (well known) surrondings. Zero mystery here and
no scooby snack for those scientists.

------
nvahalik
Of interest in the article is this:

> flooded fire ants deliver higher doses of venom because they have 165
> percent as much venom inside them as normal fire ants

Growing up in rural Texas I can assure you that fire ants were never to be
messed with (unless you had fire/gasoline).

I got stung once 3 or 4 times on my ankle, which was swollen for about 3 days.
The bites were hug. The oozed a milky liquid. We doused them in calamine
lotion, but it still didn't stop something like arthritis from hurting.

Having been stung by wasps and bees, I find those preferable to fire ant
stings. I couldn't imagine getting stung by something over 50% worse.

~~~
selimthegrim
Pity the grad student responsible for generating this number.

~~~
btilly
Read
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_sting_pain_index](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_sting_pain_index)
and walk away in disbelief.

~~~
hughdbrown
And the infographic: [http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-colorful-pain-
index...](http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-colorful-pain-index-of-the-
stinging-ants-bees-and-wasps-around-the-world)

~~~
conductr
> Baldfaced Hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your
> hand mashed in a revolving door.

> Sweat Bees: Light and ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a
> single hair on your arm.

Haha, the pain descriptions remind me of a wine menu

~~~
grkvlt
I love the yellowjacket description:

> hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar
> on your tongue.

------
DoofusOfDeath
Texans are often regarded as having an affinity for gun ownership. I think
that's silly. They clearly should all be packing flame-throwers.

~~~
stephenhuey
Houstonian here. Apparently all you need is some Dawn soap to break their
surface tension!

I've always been fascinated by ants since childhood and love watching them,
but these floating islands are the worst ambush I can imagine. Good to know
they have a kryptonite.

~~~
yourapostasy
Before readers run out and try this, there is a technique and protocol that
should be followed, or you won't like the consequences. I'll let a post on
/r/natureismetal do the typing for me [1], and here's a copy-pasta for those
who don't want to click through (more scientific explanation [2] of why this
works within seconds...to make sure around these bastards from hell, I gave
'em two minutes to display proof of death---put a stick in the drowned mass
and lift it up---before I moved on to hunting down the next raft):

\-------- clip here --------

You're all going to love this. It's environmentally friendly, it's
inexpensive, it's 100% lethal, and makes them die in the most horrible manner
possible.

Dish soap.

Put a tablespoon or two into a spray bottle, then add about 2-3 cups of water.
Swish the water to mix. Do not shake! You don't want foam in the bottle.

MOVE. UP. STREAM. Seriously, you don't want to be downstream of this when it
happens.

Now, starting in the middle of the mass, start spritzing with the soapy water,
and work your way out to the edges.

The soap will break the surface tension, and act as a wetting agent on the
ants. As a result, the water will now start wicking up their bodies,
enveloping them like living quicksand. And with the surface tension broken,
the mass of ants will start to sink.

Remember, start in the middle! This will cause the center to sink first, and
drag the edges down last. The ants will all hold on to each other and drag
every last one below the surface. With a soft bloop, the entire mass will
drop.

Remember how I said to move upstream? If you're downstream, the entire
submerged mass could end up wrapped around your legs. Where they will
immediately begin clawing their way to the surface, using you as a ladder.

Best of all, you can scale up your operation, and load a backpack sprayer with
a bottle of Dawn and a few gallons of water. Then just wade through your
neighborhood, wiping them out for the benefit of everyone!

\-------- clip here --------

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/6wkd4j/firea...](https://www.reddit.com/r/natureismetal/comments/6wkd4j/fireants_create_a_floating_island_of_themselves/dm90hkg/)

[2] [https://www.livescience.com/13867-raft-fire-ants-buoyancy-
fl...](https://www.livescience.com/13867-raft-fire-ants-buoyancy-flood-water-
repellant-floatation.html)

~~~
mixmastamyk
For someone out of the area, why would you do such a thing?

~~~
munificent
Fire ants are a foreign invasive species in the United states that kill
animals, push out native ant species, cause incredibly painful stings, and
trigger sometimes-fatal reactions in some people. They are nasty little balls
of hate.

~~~
stephenhuey
Just combine the ruthlessness of Terminators and Aliens, shrink to insect size
and multiply by billions.

------
jhayward
> There is at least one possible upside: Fire ants love to eat ticks

So what we need is a bio-engineered species of fire ant that requires some
harmless environmental additive to survive. Then we breed them, release them
over a tick-infested area, and let them breed long enough to kill off the
ticks. Then quit spraying or watever the additive they need and let them die
off.

What Could Go Wrong.

But seriously, screw ticks _and_ fire ants.

~~~
shawnee_
_screw ticks and fire ants_

Diatomaceous earth will do the job. It can be purchased at any farm supply
store for pretty cheap. Works on fleas, bedbugs, millipedes, roaches,
centipedes ... pretty much any little bug with an exoskeleton. Farm supply
store because it's traditionally been used to mix into agricultural feed (food
grade DE) as an anti-caking agent.

But works to kill bugs, too. Diatoms in this form are fossilized like
microscopic weapons of destruction that get under the exoskeletons of ants and
other creepy crawlies and dehydrate them. Best of all: no chemicals involved
so they cannot develop resistance. Medieval torture devices on bugs; will
desiccate them.

~~~
appleflaxen
does the fact that it's mechanical really mean that they can't develop
resistance? why couldn't they just develop a thicker exoskeleton (for
example)?

~~~
chongli
The thicker exoskeleton would require more energy and protein to produce,
increasing the nutritional requirements for survival. Anything that requires
substantially more energy better come with a big payoff. I'm not sure that the
ability to wander around a house includes such a payoff.

------
dhimes
I hope someone from _The Atlantic_ sees this: I will whitelist you for ads but
not for trackers. Ads are ok, trackers are the tools of Satan.

~~~
keithpeter
I just ude Firefox with javascript turned off (about:config search javascript,
toggle javascript.enabled to false). No apparent anything.

~~~
dhimes
Thanks- that's what I do also (but with noscript). I'm just calling their
attention to the issue that turning on trackers != turning on ads. And, they
shouldn't be using trackers.

------
odammit
I stepped about knee deep into a fire ant mound when I was 8 in Florida. I
thought I was going to die. I've never seen something swarm quite that fast.

~~~
inetknght
the mound just collapsed around your foot and you sank in?

~~~
saidajigumi
Accidentally stepping in or standing on a fire ant mound is a terrible rite of
passage for kids in Florida. Even if you just step on one, which when inactive
can look like just another a patch of sand, those little bastards swarm out
crazy fast. They'll easily be halfway up your leg before you realize what's
happening. One moment, you're tossing a ball or frisbee with friends and
waiting for the next throw, the next: horrible child screaming.

~~~
blantonl
They actually swarm first without biting and then once they get a critical
mass covered they chemically send a command to all bite at once.

I’m not kidding.

~~~
odammit
So they are evil incarnate.

I had them in an extremely large mound by another house I lived in as an
adult. I tossed a handle of 151 into it and lit it on fire. Payback.

~~~
clort
> So they are evil incarnate.

No, they are just insects defending their hive.

Evil incarnate would cause torment for no reason?

~~~
benjaminl
You could be sitting on the ground minding your own business, not hear a hive
and one will climb on you and start bitting.

Does that count for causing torment for no reason?

That is one of the many reasons why it is unusual to sit directly on the
ground in Florida without something like a picnic blanket.

~~~
Aardwolf
It's instincts, it does not have brain capacity to think "ha ha ha a human!
Let's be evil and ruin their picnic".

Probably instead what happens is while crawling around it detects the surface
it crawled on is actually the body of a large living entity, so going into
defense mode is one possible response. Not sure if in this case it's because
it may make you move to get free if stuck under you, or chase away possible
threats to nest, or because possible food source?

------
rwallace
> There is at least one possible upside: Fire ants love to eat ticks. The area
> where the fire ants landed may be crawling with stinging ants for a while.
> “But it’ll have absolutely no ticks. So it’ll be lovely from that
> perspective,” says Wild.

Sounds like on balance they might do more good than harm, then? Fire ant
stings are painful, but they're nothing compared to Lyme disease.

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
I'm pretty scared of the Lone Star Tick bite causing me to become allergic to
beef.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-
gal_allergy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha-gal_allergy)

------
Glyptodon
Somehow I keep expecting Texans to roast the ants from their boats with
flamethrowers pieced together from converted gas grills as they go about
rescuing the stranded.

 _edit: lol, apparently I 'm not the only one._

~~~
lordlimecat
Spray bottle with soapy water would probably do the trick just as easily.

~~~
macintux
Per another comment, that's a terrible possibly-fatal idea if you're careless
enough to do it downstream.

------
redm
I live just north of Houston and while checking out the flood waters, I saw
just such masses, several of them in fact. If you do bump into them, or they
bump into you, they will swarm you.

------
exabrial
A little bit of watered down dawn in a hand sprayer would fix that...

Coincidentally this reminds me of a really strange MacGyver episode from the
80s

------
tabeth
Could humans realistically do something similar by grabbing on to one another
with arms extended out (imagine three people, A onto B and C, B onto A and C,
and so forth). People have been able to do some crazy things, like these ants,
under the right circumstances.

It's always so sad to see people drown. It would be neat if we could create an
emergency human raft in such desperate times in a pinch.

~~~
QAPereo
Sadly no, the area/volume/power relationships are wrong, a bit like people
flying by flapping hard enough. We also lack exoskeletal structures, so we'd
be crushed.

~~~
tabeth
I was thinking something more of the lines of length/width than height (in the
case of the ants). Though, I feel your point applies there as well.

------
ChuckMcM
I find it interesting that during this period this invasive species is
vulnerable to attack. It also makes me wonder about all of the other nominally
'land' based insects. Beetles? Other species of ants? spiders? What is the
insect ecosystem impact of a huge die off like this? Does it make native
species more vulnerable? give them breathing room (presumably they would have
evolutionary advantages to surviving these events if they evolved in the
area).

------
pritam2020
I am back to ... one million ants

------
caycep
Wasn't there some sort of classical math problem that this illustrates
somehow? surface tension, math theory, etc? (my memory for this sort of thing
isn't great)

------
rajasinghe
Perhaps I missed it, but are all the ants alive in this raft? Seems tricky to
manage without some of them being submerged underwater for an extended period
of time..

~~~
josephg
Some of the ants will drown. But they use the arrangement of bodies to trap
air bubbles, keeping the colony as a whole afloat and alive. Its an amazing
trick to have figured out.

~~~
Lordarminius
> _to have figured out._

?

------
ngneer
Anyone else notice how circular that mass was? Nature loves economy.

------
gameshot911
So what happens to the ants on the bottom of the pile?

~~~
Graziano_M
They couldn't survive forever, of course, but they're small enough that they
actually bring down little bubbles of air.

------
paulpauper
it would be terrifying wading though the water and seeing a huge mound of fire
ants ants floating nearby

~~~
trynewideas
There are far more terrifying things in flood waters than fire ants, starting
with sewage and bacteria, moving on up to animals driven mad from drinking the
water, and then on to stepping into a bloated dead corpse.

I remember the cows that went mad from drinking salt water post-Rita and
thinking that I'd take a zombie attack over insane dying cows screaming while
wading through the bloated corpses of the herd's dead.

At least the ants are quiet, don't stink, and are frankly more motivated to
stay alive by retaining their ball than to pursue you. They're way more of a
threat to floating bodies (and the people recovering or disposing of those
bodies) than to living evacuees.

~~~
drone
To be fair, as someone who walked into one of these masses during the Baytown
flood of the 90's (back when the San Jacinto caught on fire, that one), I'll
take screaming cows, snakes, and rabid raccoons over floating masses of fire
ants. All the former can be shot or kept away with a stick, not to mention
seen from a distance. Those ant rafts can sneak around between other floating
detritus and catch you by surprise, and there is no defense once they catch
you.

------
buckysballs
Unreal

------
jrowley
That would suck for you, but would be good from a ecological perspective -
eating red meat isn't our most sustainable practice.

~~~
sctb
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15132666](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15132666)
and marked it off-topic.

------
zimzim
colony remain 1 million ants!

~~~
dovdovdov
you can't keep the drones!

------
joering2
I'm sorry but how is this got to be on the first page of HN? I seen similar
article on.. DailyMail. How is this related to hacking and technology? Just
curious...

~~~
lightedman
It doesn't, much like the Rob Vagg/Node.js internal politics story we had the
other day.

