7/26/2023 0 Comments Death spiral ant![]() This circular motion continues until the ants exhaust and die from. ![]() The leader of the ants keeps on circling, and other ants follow the same, maintaining a close distance from the ant ahead of them. "You'd think spiral-induced mortality would be selected against, that ants would have evolved a counter-measure to such obviously maladaptive behavior. Here's what drives the bizarre ant 'death spiral.' By John Platt Updated Augallgord / Getty There's a price for blindly following those in front of you. The spiral of death typically occurs when ants are navigating in a dense forest or an enclosed space and lose track of their pheromone trails. It's an odd phenomenon, but the more interesting question - from an evolutionary point of view, is why haven't ants over time learned to Un-spiral? Alex Wild, the photographer biologist whose blog, Myrmecos, I'm paraphrasing here, points out that getting into circular death traps is not exactly the best way to get your genes into the future. A death spiral is a strange natural phenomenon in which a colony of ants essentially commits suicide by following each other in an endless circle until they die of exhaustion. It took each ant two and a half hours to make. Ant Death Spiral (2023) by Monkey Diet, released 25 March 2023 1. Her 'lead' role seems entirely random one moment she's moving along behind some other ant, then she just steps into a gap at a random moment, turns and without intention, the Death Spiral begins. An ant mill was first described in 1921 by William Beebe, who observed a mill 1200 ft (370 m) in circumference. However, should enough of them lose the scent they begin to follow the ant immediately in front and a huge ant spiral. ![]() So whats going on that causes these ants to seemingly go mad Its all tied. If you watch it a couple of times you can find the "lead" ant inadvertently causing the trouble, but the 'leader' isn't a Napoleon type commanding the troops she's an accident. Army ants navigate by following pheromone trails left behind by others. More colloquially, its often referred to as an 'ant death spiral.' You can see it in action in the video below.
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