Ant-maps.com | It seems that ants can survive large wildfires. But how about volcanoes? These natural disasters create so much heat and dust that practically all life will be toasted. Or not?
The theory is controversial, but the German geologist Ulrich Schreiber from the University of Duisburg thinks wood ants can predict volcanic eruptions. He describes in his novel how wood ants predict a devastating volcanic eruption in the German Eifel volcanic field. The ants should identify the carbon dioxide before the eruption and leave their nests. However, the novel was fiction and other scientists did not take it seriously.
When ants can predict an eruption, they can flee. But millions of ants, walking to a saver place, tens of kilometers away? What would happen is an Eifel volcano would erupt? Let's hope it happens in the early summer when temperature reaches 25 degrees. With this speed the ants would need at least 100 hours to walk to a saver 10 kilometers distance... without time to sleep and eat. But maybe they do not have to walk that far. The eruption of Mount St. Helens learned that ants did survive pretty close to the volcano. The lived underground. Deep enough to survive the pyroclastic cloud.
But go back to the prediction of an volcanic eruption. Schreiber wrote about wood ants. But four days before the eruption Mount Pelée in the Caribbean in 1902 a large swarm of some kind of speckled ants flee into a sugar work, two miles northwest of St. Pierre. Maybe the ants did indeed sense the changes in carbon dioxide. But maybe there is another way ants can feel or sense a coming disaster. Volcano's are geological events where the earth crust is pushed up by the magma beneath. This does not just happen. Volcanoes create permanent small earthquakes year after year. Seismologists can predict an eruption by measuring these movements. It seems that ants can also feel the increasing number and strength of earthquakes.
5/25/08
European wood ants colonize forest after wildfire
Ant-maps | Wildfires are an important factor in the distribution of wood ants (Formica rufa group). According to Red wood ants in North America (PDF) did wildfires play an important role in North America. In this region wildfires are a lot more common than in Europe, so this could effect the spread through the continent. (More about this) But wildfires do not only have negative effects:
Negative effects:
* Fire destroys nests
* Fire destroys the material used to build nests, but this has only a short term effect
Positive effects:
* Fire destroys vegetation so that new forest edges are created. These edges have the best conditions for new nests.
On may 24th 2008 I checked the effect from wildfires to wood ants. I revisited the Maalbeek (Tegelse Heide site) where the fire above took place. I was wondered about the speed nature recovers. But also about the
Formica polyctena I found at open places, created by the fire. There were three small Formica polyctena nests on the east-edge of the forrest. Prooving that wood ants do colonize burned sites after one year.
Photo left: wood ants living in a small hole nest to a burned piece of wood. (Tegelse Heide nest nr. 5)
Other wood ant observations at this place: Nest 6, nest 7 and nest 8
Negative effects:
* Fire destroys nests
* Fire destroys the material used to build nests, but this has only a short term effect
Positive effects:
* Fire destroys vegetation so that new forest edges are created. These edges have the best conditions for new nests.
On may 24th 2008 I checked the effect from wildfires to wood ants. I revisited the Maalbeek (Tegelse Heide site) where the fire above took place. I was wondered about the speed nature recovers. But also about the
Formica polyctena I found at open places, created by the fire. There were three small Formica polyctena nests on the east-edge of the forrest. Prooving that wood ants do colonize burned sites after one year. Photo left: wood ants living in a small hole nest to a burned piece of wood. (Tegelse Heide nest nr. 5)
Other wood ant observations at this place: Nest 6, nest 7 and nest 8
5/20/08
Beware of the running crazy ant t-shirts
Beware of the running crazy ant. Soon there will also be an ant stuff store. To start with there is a 'crazy ant' collection. The shirt here can be found here. There is also an ant-swarm design and a processor eating Nester ant. Enjoy!
5/18/08
Distribution of crazy rasberry ants in low dense urban areas
It seems that the Crazy Rasberry Ant does not like Houston Downtown. Instead it colonizes the suburbs. This fact can be useful for pest controllers and entomologists. The map below shows a general geological map with rivers and streams and the locations where the ants are found until 2007. (See below for the internet resources). Comparing these maps and Google Earth maps learn that the crazy ants do not like dense urban areas. Most of the places are close to the river and streams, also the main roads and in urban areas with a low density. Find a larger map on ant-maps.com
5/17/08
The Crazy Rasberry ant (Paratrechina sp. nr. pubens)
Original at Ant-maps | The Crazy Rasberry ant Paratrechina sp. nr. pubens is not just a Rasberry ant (Paratrechina pubens). This funny ant does look like the small Rasberry ant, but it's behavior is strange. So strange that entomologists think is another species. So it's scientific name is Paratrechina sp. nr. pubens. (Paratrechina species near pubens).
The crazy rasberry ants were imported to the United States in 2002 by a cargo ship into Texas. They like it so much the ants started to colonize buildings and yards. But these ants doe not have 'normal' behavior like other ants. Normal ants create roads to their food sources. But these do run randomly all over anything they get in contact with. Another strange thing is that they do not like sweet food. The Crazy Rasberry ants eat electonic devices, like electrical boxes and computers.
Since 2005 the number of colonies exploded. Because the ants eat also fire alarms and now threaten the Space Center the public starts to worry. Most of the ant controls do not work and they keep growing in number.
Description: A full description can be found here. These ants have a lot of hairs and are red-brown, but sometimes with yellow brow variations. Their legs are long and the antennae have 12 segments. Their main food is other small insects. Why they do eat electronics is a miracle. Scientists do not have any clue...
For Dutch people: Vreemde mieren veroveren Houston, Texas
The crazy rasberry ants were imported to the United States in 2002 by a cargo ship into Texas. They like it so much the ants started to colonize buildings and yards. But these ants doe not have 'normal' behavior like other ants. Normal ants create roads to their food sources. But these do run randomly all over anything they get in contact with. Another strange thing is that they do not like sweet food. The Crazy Rasberry ants eat electonic devices, like electrical boxes and computers.
Since 2005 the number of colonies exploded. Because the ants eat also fire alarms and now threaten the Space Center the public starts to worry. Most of the ant controls do not work and they keep growing in number.
Description: A full description can be found here. These ants have a lot of hairs and are red-brown, but sometimes with yellow brow variations. Their legs are long and the antennae have 12 segments. Their main food is other small insects. Why they do eat electronics is a miracle. Scientists do not have any clue...
For Dutch people: Vreemde mieren veroveren Houston, Texas
5/2/08
Where did supercolony Ravensheide-1 go?
Earlier this week I published some ant-road maps on Ant-maps.com. One of these maps shows the nest and ant-path structure from the supre colonie 'Ravensheide 1'. The structure counted at least 18 nest, including some nest one meter high. Some protected by metal cages to protect the nest against hungry woodpeckers.
Last year some of the nest were disapeared or a lot smaller than before. And today, when I visited the colonie all the nest were gone. Not one was active. Two new nest had been formed in the last 16 months, but even these 'new' nest were nothing more than a ruin. Only on one spot, now marked with the project-number Ravensheide-323, counted some ants... but no nest. That means some ants found a save place under the ground. Where did all the other ants go?
Here you fond a full list of Ravensheide.
Last year some of the nest were disapeared or a lot smaller than before. And today, when I visited the colonie all the nest were gone. Not one was active. Two new nest had been formed in the last 16 months, but even these 'new' nest were nothing more than a ruin. Only on one spot, now marked with the project-number Ravensheide-323, counted some ants... but no nest. That means some ants found a save place under the ground. Where did all the other ants go?
Here you fond a full list of Ravensheide.
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