An Highway

Ant Highway.

Two weekends ago, we went down south to Samone.  I wrote about it for muscle beach - the previous blog post.  That morning, I took myself for a run and as I was cutting along back dirt roads and looking for the back of the Delta area where I had done a 12km race in January, I was suddenly stopped in my tracks by - a track.

I looked closely and saw hundreds.  Well, probably thousands of ants walking across the ground. I tried tracing the path one way but quickly lost it in the tall grass.  I looked the other way and saw their huge pile of dirt.

I found it interesting but continued my run.

About an hour later, I was back with my family and some friends.  The children were fascinated by the path and all the ants, keeping purposefully to the highway.  We tried different things.  Sticks across the path created a huge traffic jam.  Then,after a few minutes, we lifted the stick and the mass of ants, a high density surge, flowed forward and several meters later, you could watch the wave continue forward and create another traffic jam as it tried to all pack into the small colony entrance at once.

Then, we tried putting down some crackers.  All ants like crackers, we thought.  No, these ants did not like the food.  We though the pile of crackers would stop all the dilligent works for they would only travel as far as the food.  Instead, the food created its own traffic jam of ants not sure how to get around the new material.  A number of ants ended up going off road - blazing their own trail through the rough undergrowth next to the trail.

Finally, we had had our fun and continued our walk.  Then, about another hour later, we circled back on our way to the hotel.  We stopped to look at the trail and see what was happening.

Nothing.  We figured the heat of the day had caused the ants to leave and so, an empty trail lay with no explanation for its existence.

We looked and found the crackers - still a huge pile we had left.  Our ants had no interest but we looked closely and some some very small ants.  These, presumably a different species, were very interested.  

And so, the second shift of ants did what the first shift did not and slowly cleared up our little gift.