Ants Bridges building : a wonderful example of sacrifice and cooperation

It’s a strange and peculiar world with endless secrets… it’s the ant’s world…Scientists are always discovering a new thing that shows the magnificence of this small creature, that is really worth revealing and to be named ‘’The Ants.

Scientists say the ant’s brain weight is a hundredth gram, whereas the whale’s one is hundred thousand more than the ant’s. However, the ant accomplishes more intelligent tasks and works than this big whale! This reality wonders and confuses the scientists.

Every day, the scientists declare that the insects’ world, especially the ant one is a very complicated thing, it’s cannot be logical to say that the ant has developed itself alone, because its limited brain can’t treat all these information when doing its tasks. In this picture, we see the ant head and its small brain inside, it contains over 300000 neurons. A man brain contains more than trillion cells, i.e. hundreds of thousands times more than the ant one. Although this small brain, it can treat all necessary information that the ant needs to accomplish its tasks showing that this brain has been programmed.

Scientists observed the ant’s world for longtime, in the beginning, they thought that it’s a limited world that can neither think nor understand nor communicate! However, it has finally been shown that the ants are a nation as we are, they have their laws, their life, their intelligence. It has been shown that the ant building architecture is older than the man one, it has been building houses since millions years. Scientists have recently discovered the bridges building in the ant world.

According to a Reuters site study, the way that the ant adopts to cross holes is to build ant bridges! Two British researchers mentioned that the ants group sacrifice themselves when facing holes to save the others. Some lie inside these irregular holes to make more equal route for the others.

These researchers found that a type of ants living in the Central and South America chose some ants from the group that have adequate body sizes to fit the holes. They said in a report published in ‘’Animal Behavior’’ journal that more ants may unite together to fill bigger hole!

See this living bridge, how some ants sacrificed for the others. Scientists say that the ants building the bridge by their bodies suffer a lot when the other ants pass across, but they endure and resist like a real bridge that the other ant can pass by! 

Scott Powell and Nigel Franks from Bristol university studied Eciton burchellii that walk in the Central and South Americ forests in group of 200000 ants! This group is in constant contact with the ants’ nest by a very long line ants. But this long line of living ants can be hardly disturbed when the others pass on the leaves and branches spread on the forests ground.

In this picture, we see how they take each other to build a solid bridge on which the ants can pass to the other side. The scientists that studied this phenomenon confirm that the ant chose with care the appropriate sizes to sacrifice in building this bridge!

A small number of ants fill the holes build to obtain a coherent road. Scientists say: the ants have their own way to redress the roads. Powell said: when the traffic eventually diminishes, the ant that forms this motionless plug will pop out of the hole and run home. Broadly, our research demonstrates that a simple but highly specialised behavior performed by a minority of ant workers can improve the performance of the majority, resulting in a clear benefit for the society as a whole.

From researches about ants’ neurology done in Boston university, the researcher James Traniello says: this complicated ants’ behavior is programmed, so each one can first know what it has to do. The small ant has limited tasks according to its size, but the youth and strong one are defenders and food processors and accomplish other difficult tasks. Whereas, the old ant is retired and the others take care of it!

Franks and Powell did laboratory experiences to show this behavior. Franks said, we put inserted wooden planks, drilled with a variety of different sized holes, into the army ants' trails to see how their sizes can fit the holes’. Indeed, the ants did well, they chose the appropriate way to build the bridge. This way astonished the scientists so they asked; how did the ant learn this technique to build, whereas people have to work hard and do complicated architectural calculations to do so?

Dr. Scott Powell says when the ants face holes and can’t cross; they chose some ants that have the adequate size to fit the hole. The chosen ant sacrifices itself, endures and builds the living bridge by its body so that the other ants pass on! They experience several times before to build the bridge, they must find the size and the strength that can bear the ants on the back! 

Researchers working on this say the ants sacrifice small number of ants to build this bridge, but they win a lot when they guarantee the road to thousands ants. The ants do this social act voluntarily and with pleasure, each one hastens to try its size whether it is appropriate to this living surface or not!

This ant bridge building architecture is a very sophisticated technique and with no expense but little sacrifice and mutual aid. The scientists wonder the big energy that the ant provides when building the living surface, they also wonder its endurance and big programmed effort so they confirm the ant is very intelligent and loves too much the other ants.

We always remember in such context the divine proof that demonstrated that the ants and other creatures are nations as we are.