saw this comment on Reddit:
>They weren't trapped for years. There was a ventilation pipe they were falling down from. That's how they got down there. New ones kept falling in all the time, keeping their numbers high. They didn't survive for years "because cannibalism" and there is no evidence that any individual ant survived for more than a short time.
Yes, it says in the study that new ants were falling down. A million ants didn't fall down all at once though, and they did sustain themselves by eating the corpses of dead ants.
Yeah, and they found evidence of cannibalism on the ant corpses examined
> Of the corpses collected from ‘cemeteries’, a vast majority (93%) bore traces of bites, and also fret holes were seen on their abdomens – typical signs left when the contents have been consumed.
This species is also known to eat their dead in other circumstances:
> It is known that wood ants consume dead bodies of their conspecifics left in masses on the ground during spectacular ‘ant wars’ early in the season.
I'm interested in knowing what the consequences were for the source nest from the sudden influx of a million escaped worker ants, positive or negative.
If there were Bats in the bunker, surely there must have been other insects (prey / predators)?
This is anecdotal, but a WW2 bomb shelter I saw was filled with beetles and other creepy crawlies in Scotland. Ok it probably wasn't as deep underground as a nuclear storage facility but life finds a way.
That's actually surprising. I would have guessed around 0.25-0.50g or so. I'm usually pretty good at guesstimations, and yet I'm off by a factor of 100 here.
While searching for another source to verify this fact, I learnt from wikipedia that Formica polyctena ants are near threatened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formica_polyctena
Good that they got out of the bunker.
Given that ants make 20% of the entire animal biomass on land (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_e0CA_nhaE), it didn't cross my mind that subspecies could go to extinction ^^
"Dude, where am I?"
"We don't know."
"How do we get back to Mother?"
"We don't know, or we would have gone home"
"You say 'we', how many of you are here?"
"Millions"
"Is there anything to eat? I'm so hungry I could eat a horsefly"
"That depends on how long we have to chase you around for"
While this is technically accurate, the OP suggests more that they survived by eating their own corpses. There was just one source of ants to the bunker; living workers ate dead ones, presumably without murdering them first.
There needs to be some clarifying questions. I'm basing these questions on the premise that the trapped ants ate the corpses of incoming worker ants without killing them first.
(1) How did the incoming worker ants come to be in the bunker? Based on the premise, they fell into the bunker already dead.
If that's the case and if the ants were not reproducing, unless they have a relatively long lifespan, (2) shouldn't they die out overtime regardless of how many corpses fell into the bunker?
(3) Why couldn't the trap ants make it across the ceiling into the ventilation pipe--are some ants unable to crawl upside down or did the texture of the ceiling impede them?
If the premise is incorrect and the ants have a short lifespan, it's reasonable to think that the "trapped" ants are just an accumulation of worker ants that kept falling into the bunker.
No, it doesn't say they were dead when they fell into the bunker. In fact, the contrary.
From the abstract:
> Here we show that the ‘colony’ in the bunker survived and grew thanks to an influx of workers from the source nest above the bunker
And the introduction:
> Ants which had dropped through the pipe to the bunker were not able to reach the outlet, located in the ceiling, to return to the mother nest.
And regarding your question about being able to crawl across the ceiling, probably not enough texture to grip. After all, the article indicates that there was question about whether they would even be able to crawl up the ventilation pipe:
> the only way to free the ants from the bunker would be to enable their spontaneous return migration to the maternal nest through the ventilation pipe – assuming that the rusty pipe interior is coarse enough for that
And to your point
> it's reasonable to think that the "trapped" ants are just an accumulation of worker ants that kept falling into the bunker.
Yes, and that is the premise of the study. However, a million ants didn't fall down all at once (or in a very short period), so however long they were down there they had to adapt to survive - which is what the study is about.
For an interesting science fiction take on ants you should read the book "Children of Time"! This story of ants adapting reminded me of the ants in that book.
From my understanding they don't know where they're going, they just walk around aimlessly hunting for food and following pheromone tails so it'd be hard to find that one hole in the entire room, especially when it's on the ceiling. There may have also been slime built up around the hole which would make it difficult to traverse even if they did find it. They'd need to survive starvation and cannibalism to find their way out too.
saw this comment on Reddit: >They weren't trapped for years. There was a ventilation pipe they were falling down from. That's how they got down there. New ones kept falling in all the time, keeping their numbers high. They didn't survive for years "because cannibalism" and there is no evidence that any individual ant survived for more than a short time.
Yes, it says in the study that new ants were falling down. A million ants didn't fall down all at once though, and they did sustain themselves by eating the corpses of dead ants.
Yeah, and they found evidence of cannibalism on the ant corpses examined
> Of the corpses collected from ‘cemeteries’, a vast majority (93%) bore traces of bites, and also fret holes were seen on their abdomens – typical signs left when the contents have been consumed.
This species is also known to eat their dead in other circumstances:
> It is known that wood ants consume dead bodies of their conspecifics left in masses on the ground during spectacular ‘ant wars’ early in the season.
now swap ants for your own species. nature is the best horror writer.
The subcolony survived for years.
I'm interested in knowing what the consequences were for the source nest from the sudden influx of a million escaped worker ants, positive or negative.
Previous discussion about the referenced 2016 paper: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12414676
One comment there asks what the ants are up to since they have no food to collect or queen to mate with and this was the response:
> Based on the article it seems that they're just endlessly maintaining their nest. Waiting for their Queen who will never come...
I found this to be both extremely hilarious and depressing
An ant-eater! quick, save the children and move them to the secret bunker!. We'll rejoin you later in Helm's Deep!
Like that sounds much less depressing to me. Or think about it like Spartants. Most ants do not live very long lives in any case.
> "no queen to mate with"
Ant males would never mate in a dirty bunker when there is the entire sky for this kind of romantic bussiness
I remember reading that paper back then. This is like a happy ending follow up story to that. :D
If there were Bats in the bunker, surely there must have been other insects (prey / predators)?
This is anecdotal, but a WW2 bomb shelter I saw was filled with beetles and other creepy crawlies in Scotland. Ok it probably wasn't as deep underground as a nuclear storage facility but life finds a way.
This wasn’t a rep underground facility either. It was a concrete hole in the ground with a vent tube.
Ants have a mass of 3mg, so 2 million ants is about 6kg. For perspective.
That's actually surprising. I would have guessed around 0.25-0.50g or so. I'm usually pretty good at guesstimations, and yet I'm off by a factor of 100 here.
One cm^3 of water is 1g. Ant's a lot smaller.
Alternatively, 1mm^3 of water is 1mg. Imagine the average ant as the sum of three balls, each measuring 1mm^3. That's 3mg.
While a sphere is going to be in the same ballpark, a cube of 1mm³ is presumably easier to imagine.
Except an ant looks like 3 spheres
The commenter was pointing out that a sphere of volume 1 mm^3 has a diameter of 1.24 mm, while a sphere of diameter 1 mm has a volume of 0.52 mm^3.
Meanwhile a cube of side 1 mm has a volume of 1 mm^3.
For the purpose of this exercise, assume a rectilinear ant.
Some ants are get pretty sizeable.
While searching for another source to verify this fact, I learnt from wikipedia that Formica polyctena ants are near threatened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formica_polyctena Good that they got out of the bunker.
Given that ants make 20% of the entire animal biomass on land (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_e0CA_nhaE), it didn't cross my mind that subspecies could go to extinction ^^
Sounds like you would find this video very interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqECNYmM23A
Yes, I'm a fan of Kurzgesagt and watching all their videos :)
What do you mean? African or European ̶s̶w̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ants?
Geez, they survived by eating other ants that were unlucky enough to stumble into the bunker.
"Dude, where am I?" "We don't know." "How do we get back to Mother?" "We don't know, or we would have gone home" "You say 'we', how many of you are here?" "Millions"
"Is there anything to eat? I'm so hungry I could eat a horsefly"
"That depends on how long we have to chase you around for"
While this is technically accurate, the OP suggests more that they survived by eating their own corpses. There was just one source of ants to the bunker; living workers ate dead ones, presumably without murdering them first.
This is similar to a Star Trek: Voyager episode: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Void_(Star_Trek:_Voyager)
There needs to be some clarifying questions. I'm basing these questions on the premise that the trapped ants ate the corpses of incoming worker ants without killing them first.
(1) How did the incoming worker ants come to be in the bunker? Based on the premise, they fell into the bunker already dead. If that's the case and if the ants were not reproducing, unless they have a relatively long lifespan, (2) shouldn't they die out overtime regardless of how many corpses fell into the bunker?
(3) Why couldn't the trap ants make it across the ceiling into the ventilation pipe--are some ants unable to crawl upside down or did the texture of the ceiling impede them?
If the premise is incorrect and the ants have a short lifespan, it's reasonable to think that the "trapped" ants are just an accumulation of worker ants that kept falling into the bunker.
No, it doesn't say they were dead when they fell into the bunker. In fact, the contrary.
From the abstract:
> Here we show that the ‘colony’ in the bunker survived and grew thanks to an influx of workers from the source nest above the bunker
And the introduction:
> Ants which had dropped through the pipe to the bunker were not able to reach the outlet, located in the ceiling, to return to the mother nest.
And regarding your question about being able to crawl across the ceiling, probably not enough texture to grip. After all, the article indicates that there was question about whether they would even be able to crawl up the ventilation pipe:
> the only way to free the ants from the bunker would be to enable their spontaneous return migration to the maternal nest through the ventilation pipe – assuming that the rusty pipe interior is coarse enough for that
And to your point
> it's reasonable to think that the "trapped" ants are just an accumulation of worker ants that kept falling into the bunker.
Yes, and that is the premise of the study. However, a million ants didn't fall down all at once (or in a very short period), so however long they were down there they had to adapt to survive - which is what the study is about.
Thanks.
I suspect that it's like a wasp trap. In theory they could walk out if they could find the exit, but the exit is in a spot they aren't looking.
Today I've learned that there were nuclear weapons stored in Poland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_and_weapons_of_mass_des...
For an interesting science fiction take on ants you should read the book "Children of Time"! This story of ants adapting reminded me of the ants in that book.
This was one of my favorite books I've ever read. So much fun imagining how other intelligences might function.
I might be missing something obvious. Couldn't the ants have escaped the bunker through the same route the scientists used to enter?
From my understanding they don't know where they're going, they just walk around aimlessly hunting for food and following pheromone tails so it'd be hard to find that one hole in the entire room, especially when it's on the ceiling. There may have also been slime built up around the hole which would make it difficult to traverse even if they did find it. They'd need to survive starvation and cannibalism to find their way out too.
Why couldn't the ants reach the ventilation pipe?