Recently, a hiker in Thailand's Trang province spotted a strange phenomenon in the shade of a rubber tree plantation, where swarms of ants have been moving and forming a circle.
This phenomenon is called "ant death vortex", composed of marching ants without vision, mostly led by a "lead ant", it will secrete trail pheromones, so that other marching ants follow with their sense of smell, once the lead ants lose their direction, resulting in confusion in the trail pheromones, it will make the whole group of marching ants get lost, and even fall into the "death vortex", continue to circle and finally die due to physical exhaustion.
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Ant death vortex
The "ant mill" consists of a walking ant without vision, mostly led by a "lead ant", which secretes trail pheromone (trail pheromone) for other marching ants to follow with a sense of smell; once the leader ant loses its direction, causing confusion in the trail pheromone, it will make the whole group of marching ants get lost, and even fall into the "death vortex", continue to circle and finally die due to physical exhaustion.
According to some ant research experts, this phenomenon is very rare, there is no way to determine why the ants continue to circle in the same place, but experts speculate that because the ants are by leaving pheromones to guide their companions forward, and this phenomenon may be caused by some of the food detection workers left some wrong pheromone messages, the back with the smell of the ant constantly in the same place and also leave the smell for other ants to follow, gradually become a circle of continuous circle, This cycle lasts until the ants die of exhaustion, so experts also call this circle the "ant death vortex."
Marching ants, unlike most ant species, are invisible. They do not have fixed nests and do not live in one location. Marching ant colonies are constantly moving in search of food. The lead ant leaves a pheromone trace for other ants to sniff out and track. But when it goes wrong, ants that track traces of pheromones can form a dead loop, and if that cycle isn't broken, the ants may never be able to escape.
The ant death vortex may have been around for a thousand years, but the phenomenon was first observed in 1936. At that time, ant biologist T.C. Schneirla stumbled upon a death circle of hundreds of ants. This phenomenon lasted all day, and a heavy rain did not even stop them. By the next day most of the ants were dead, but there were still some ants in a weak circle, in a state of near death. He describes the experience in a paper: "The entire area is littered with dead and dying ant carcasses, and a small number of survivors take heavy steps around a small and irregular ring. ”
(Original title: Cautious entry!) Thai hikers photograph rare "ant death swirls" at plantations)
Source: Synthesized from @ Huan Video, Baidu Encyclopedia
Process Editor: TF016