Becky Oskin,
OurAmazingPlanet Staff Writer
Date: 11 April
2013 Time: 05:37 PM ET
Ants with the
world's worst taste in real estate seem to sense earthquakes before they
strike, according to research presented today (April 11) at the European
Geosciences Union annual meeting in Vienna .
Active faults,
fractures where the Earth violently ruptures in earthquakes, are the preferred
housing site for red wood ants in Germany . Researcher Gabriele
Berberich of the University Duisburg-Essen in Germany
has counted more than 15,000 red wood ant mounds lined up along Germany 's
faults, like candy drops on a conveyor belt.
For three
years, Berberich and her colleagues tracked the ants 24-7 with video cameras,
using special software to catalog behavioral changes. There were 10 earthquakes between magnitude
2.0 and 3.2 during the study period, 2009 to 2012, and many smaller temblors.
The ants only changed behavior for quakes larger than magnitude 2.0, which also
happens to be the smallest quakes that humans can feel.
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