By Sarah B. Puschmann, Staff Writer | August
29, 2017 05:53pm ET
As floodwaters rise in Houston and its surrounding area, fire
ants are staging their own type of evacuation, by floating to safety on rafts
made out of their own bodies.
On Sunday (Aug. 27), CBS News correspondent Omar Villafranca
tweeted a photo of a huge raft of fire ants seen in Houston — yet another
danger inhabitants of southeastern Texas have had to contend with since Tropical
Storm Harvey made landfall as a hurricane on Friday night
(Aug. 25).
In the United States, fire ants (Solenopsis
invicta) primarily inhabit the Southeast. When faced with a flood, they
emerge from the soil, and form a
floating raft by linking their bodies together. Rafts made up of
as many as 8,000 ants have been observed, according to a 2011 study performed
by researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. The ants'
ability to trap air pockets makes them buoyant and, for the submerged ants at
the bottom of the raft, provides a source of oxygen, according to the study.
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