Ants "Pave" Over Sticky Path

Occurred on March 3, 2022 / Athens, Georgia, USA

: "Ants use soil to cover up various subjects like wet foods or toxic substances. However, a recent study (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1744-7917.12891) showed that red imported fire ants could "pave" a sticky surface to make walking easier. This video provides a striking demonstration of such behavior. A piece of double-sided tape is placed in the middle of the rearing enclosure, with some glass gravels provided near the tape. The ants would carry the gravels to the sticky surface and put them down as if they were paving a road. You can read more in the journal paper, but in a word, the more traffic there is across the sticky surface, the more motivated ants will be to "pave" it.

[NOTE: This behavior is highly repeatable, so if you or any interested party wants more similar videos, I could make more, and ViralHog can deal with the business. ]"