Ant Mill Commit Mass Suicide

[جوري]

By now, you may know that lemmings don't really commit mass suicide. But did you know that ants sometimes do? In the video above, a few dozen army ants (species Labidus praedator) engage in an creepy ritual entomologists call an "ant mill." Unless something disrupts their spiraling path, they'll keep following it until they die from exhaustion.
How did they get in this mess? The ants are blind, and they navigate by following scent cues left behind by other ants, as Sanford Porter, a research entomologist with the USDA-ARS explains in a Discovery Channel video. Each follows the odor trail of the ant ahead of it--so if the leader loops around and starts following another ant in the group, a death spiral can result.
Biologist and insect photographer extraordinaire Alex Wild noted on his blog that this sort of behavior can arise from such simple situations as a few ants exploring a coffee cup. But it can also be huge—one spiral, 1200 feet in circumference, was observed by American naturalist William Beebe in Guyana in 1921.
It may seem like an evolutionary glitch, but the fact that ants aren't big on critical thinking actually has some interesting applications. Ants' behavior is generally determined by only a few simple rules, such as "follow the ant in front of you," and this makes them a useful model in some artificial intelligence simulations. These so-called "ant colony optimization" algorithms use ant-like objects to solve problems such as finding the most efficient route through a maze. Since 'bugs' like the ant mill can be a big problem in those simulations, programmers usually add safety measures to keep the ants on track.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...6pLid%3D147556

[GuestFellow]

Salaam,

Interesting, does look creepy.

[Alpha Dude]

Those are perculiar antics.

A giant pile. Wonder what they find so important about following those in front. Fantastic, in a way.

:hiding:

[جوري]

someone should just drop a bucket of water and sugar on top of them snap them out of their misery..

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[Muezzin]

Those are perculiar antics.

A giant pile. Wonder what they find so important about following those in front. Fantastic, in a way.

:hiding:

Ant one more thing!

What's really bugging me is why not one of them decided, 'No! I shan't follow those in front to oblivion! I do not need or want their approval. I am no sychophant! Nor am I an elephant!'

....

I'll stop.

[marwen]

Interesting information. But it seems to me like an accidental situation that can occur to a group of ants, more than an intended suicide.
Ants are very interesting creatures. A single ant is elementary and limited in inteligence, but an organized group of ants (ant colony) can be a very sophisticated and intelligent system.

[جوري]

I am more fascinated by ravens they even have a court system and everything.. can't beat that..

[CosmicPathos]

I was hoping to see the ants die too!

I love ravens. And crows. The cawing of crows is not one of the serene sounds but for some reason, it just adds to the mystery of a cold foggy morning.

[GodIsAll]

This is news to me...fascinating and thanks for sharing.

[Al-Mufarridun]

:sl:

Do you know who is worst off than those ants?


Allah swt says in the Noble Qur'an;

[ Allah ] will say, "Enter among nations which had passed on before you of jinn and mankind into the Fire."
Every time a nation enters, it will curse its sister until, when they have all overtaken one another therein,
the last of them will say about the first of them "Our Lord, these had misled us, so give them a double punishment of the Fire.
He will say, "For each is double, but you do not know." Surat Al-'A'raf v. 38


May Allah swt guide us all to the straight path. Ameen

وَهُوَ الَّذِي أَنشَأَ لَكُمُ السَّمْعَ وَالْأَبْصَارَ وَالْأَفْئِدَةَ ۚ قَلِيلًا مَّا تَشْكُرُونَ
It is He Who has created for you (the faculties of) hearing, sight,
feeling and understanding: little are you grateful! Al-Mu'minun v78

[Snowflake]

That made me dizzy.

[Snowflake]

I was hoping to see the ants die too!

I love ravens. And crows. The cawing of crows is not one of the serene sounds but for some reason, it just adds to the mystery of a cold foggy morning.

When staying in Pakistan, I'd often hear relatives saying, 'Oh someone's going to visit today, or we shall receive some news."

I'd ask how they knew. And they say that if a crow cawed on your roof/wall, it meant that someone would be visiting you that day, or that you'd receive a letter or some news. The strange thing was that it used to be true. Mysterious birds for sure.

[Scimitar]

I tracked an ant in the video... it went done 7 circles counter clockwise and then the video stopped....

... wonder if there's an ant safa/marwa too ^o)

Scimi

[~Zaria~]

The ant standing on the stick looks like the cult leader......he seems to be directing this mass sucide......

Its actually quite sad.

If I was there, I would have tried to break up the circle for them.....shame.

[Scimitar]

The ant standing on the stick looks like the cult leader

... yeah, I thought he was pretty cool. Nice armour too... A bit like the Stallone ant from the cartoon ANTZ :D

Scimi

[GuestFellow]

This reminds me of a movie called Suicide Club.

[GuestFellow]

I was hoping to see the ants die too!


I love ravens. And crows. The cawing of crows is not one of the serene sounds but for some reason, it just adds to the mystery of a cold foggy morning.

Salaam,

I like crows too.

I like King Pigeons too. I must have one. :skeleton:

[Futuwwa]

Ant one more thing!

What's really bugging me is why not one of them decided, 'No! I shan't follow those in front to oblivion! I do not need or want their approval. I am no sychophant! Nor am I an elephant!'

....

I'll stop.

Ants don't follow other ants in front of them. They follow chemical pheromone trails left by other ants. Ants who don't have a chemical trail to follow will simply wander around at random until they find a food source, after which they haul as much food as they can carry back into the anthill.

Consequently, if one ant encounters a food source that's close to the hill, it keeps going back and forth to it, causing a high density of pheromones to drop in its path. Another ant going to a more distant food source would leave a lower density of pheromones. Consequently, other ants wandering near would be more likely to smell the trail leading to the closer food source. Which, of course, leads to even more pheromones and even more ants.

Normally this instinctive behaviour will cause all ants to pile in on the closest food source and effectively bring it back home, without any need for higher intelligence. They get the job done despite being utterly stupid individually. The case in the OP is a glitch, an unlikely occurrence when this behaviour pattern doesn't lead to the "intended" result.

[Futuwwa]

And therefore it isn't mass suicide in any sense of the term. Suicide implies intent. These ants don't intend to or want to die, they just do their normal thing which works well for them 99% of the time.