When you see some ants and small ant holes on the ground, can you imagine how big their underground ant nests are? Although we know that ants are highly organized and highly social social animals that often live together in hundreds or thousands, it may still be difficult for us to imagine the living space of ants.
This is what it looks like from the ground. |wiki
In 2012, a group of scientists discovered an abandoned anthill in Brazil. On the ground, they don't look big (from a human perspective), but to unveil the ant nest, the researchers decided to,Concrete is injected from ant holes in the ground to fill the channels in this abandoned nest, and then dig it out again.
The surface of an ant hole in Brazil looks like this.
It sounds simple, but in actual operation, it took the researchers 10 days to fill the entire tunnel.10 tons of concrete were used. This shows that the seemingly inconspicuous ant nest is actually a "super metropolis".
This is an ant city|Reference 1
After 10 days of preparation, the researchers finally started digging. Because the project was so huge, an excavator was used for the excavation.A total of 40 tons of soil were dug out during the entire process, this huge ant maze can truly be displayed before our eyes.
Digging an ant hole actually requires such a big project. |Reference 1
It wasn't until after it was dug out that scientists discovered how amazing this ant nest was. It was not only unbelievable in size and about 8 meters deep into the ground, but also had a very exquisite structure.
The ant metropolis contains various seemingly well-designed tunnels, and the "roads" connecting circular rooms are intricate, achieving efficient transportation. There are also various "small roads" for connectingA “fungus garden” cultivated by ants and a garbage dump. There are also designs that can maintain the entire underground lair.Well ventilated.
Various rooms and “roads” in Ant City｜Reference 1
As you can imagine, this once-abandoned ant city once undertook various complex functions. In addition to using collective wisdom to dig tunnels, you also need to transport garbage out of the nest in time, transport food in the maze-like room, etc.
Turning abandoned ant nests into works of art has even become an increasingly popular collecting hobby. AnthillArt is such an art organization.Non-toxic zinc or aluminum is injected into abandoned ant nests to create unique works of art.
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology wanted to know how ants dug a nest, so they put some ants in a jar and used X-rays to see the specific details of the ants' digging.
Research results released in 2021 show that ants may not be "smart" designers, but they are very talented, researchers said:"They stumbled upon a mining technique that obeyed the laws of physics, but was extremely efficient.", so they can dig tunnels underground that won’t collapse.
Researchers also believe that this kind of mining behavior needs further learning, and maybe it can be used by us in the future, such asComputer modeling can be performed to simulate the digging of ants, and even "bionic ants" can be made to help humans dig tunnels.