Army Ants Create Bridges from Worker Bodies for Shortcuts

Army ants may construct complex bridges from their own bodies in order to create shortcuts through tropical forests. Scientists have taken a closer look at insect behavior to learn a bit more about how these creatures maneuver quickly through the forest.

Army ants are nomadic species. They relocate their colonies throughout the rainforest on a regular basis. In order to make moving easier, a colony can have up to 1 million individuals in some species. This is important since ant workers use their own bodies to plug holes along the path traveled by the colony.

The researchers found that after starting at intersections between twigs or lianas traveled by the ants, the bridges, created by ants, slowly moved away from the starting point, creating shortcuts and progressively lengthening by addition of new workers before stopping, suspended in mid-air.

"These bridges change dynamically with the traffic pattern on the trail," said Christopher Reid, one of the lead authors of the new study, in a news release. "Imagine if the George Washington Bridge between New York city and New Jersey would reposition itself across the river depending on the direction of rush-hour traffic."

Interestingly, the ants stopped before achieving maximum shortcuts with the bridges. While the ants would benefit from shorting traveling bridges, they would also incur cost by sequestering workers being used as bridges instead of using them for other important tasks.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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