These ants are one of the most effective teams in the natural world

A chain of weavers can easily exceed almost any other creature, book for book, making it one of the most formidable teams in the animal kingdom.

Tisserands ants (Oecophylla smaragdina), which are from India to north of Australia, form long chains to shoot the leaves to roll them up to build their nests. They lock together using their mandibles to keep the abdomen of the ant in front.

To determine how strong they are, Chris Reid at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and his colleagues offered Weaver ant instead of real to build a nest. They attached a transducer at the forefront of the paper sheet to measure the amount of force according to which up to 17 anchor applied when they wrapped the paper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixamog0honi

The researchers found that individual ants can generate an average of almost 60 times its own body weight in traction force, but in a team of 15 people, each individual was able to draw their body weight more than 100 times. This means that the average contribution of force by individual has almost doubled in the team.

This result seems to contradict a long -standing principle of teamwork known as the effect of Ringelmann, in which the more group A is, the less each individual becomes productive. It is believed that the individuals of a group lose both coordination and motivation.

Although the researchers did not do the calculation on how the Weaver ants would take place in relation to humans, Reid says that they would make a great enemy in a tug, even if they were not on the scale of human size. “Even at the size of the guinea pig, weavers’ ants could be able to surpass humans in a war fighting match,” he said. “But their biggest advantage is to have six legs and have a very good contact with the ground on each of these legs.”

This can be part of the reason they are able to reverse the Ringelmann effect, explains Reid. Although the exact mechanisms of their group power are still fully understood, an idea is that some of the ants in the chain lock on the ground while the others shoot, creating a kind of force rattle.

“When you compare the fines of weaves to other species, their attachment force with the ground is out of the graphics. It is an order of magnitude greater than other ants, ”explains Reid.

Safari insect and ecosystems: Sri Lanka

Travel in the richly biodiversity heart of Sri Lanka on this unique entomology and this expedition focused on ecosystems.