Can Ants Swim?

7/30/2013

Video below:
The answer to this question depends on how we define swimming. Ants do not use a "breaststroke" to navigate water, but they do have the ability to effectively cross water to find possible food sources. I believe that the secret to their success is due to the fact that they have sufficient buoyancy to avoid immediate drowning. My observations so far suggest that some ants seem to do the equivalent of a dog paddle or a similar designed leg movement. But the majority seem to just flail their way across a length of water. They are able to float for a long time when they tire from moving, become disorientated easily, and once they find land, or a rock in this case, they are reluctant to return to the water. It is well known that ants use scent trails to mark direction for other ants to follow, but in the water, this is not possible.
A few words about the video. I do not have real macro video capability so although the video has some faults, I did my best to illustrate these amazing insects. For a really great video made in Europe with fantastic images and professional experiments, but no swimming, go to this 54 minute documentary here. By the way, the little guy at the end did make it to the rock after about ten minutes!

5 Comments

Selvam, Sivagangai

11/21/2014 01:22:25 pm

To prevent ants invading a bottle of honey, I placed it in a small saucer filled with water. In the evening when I return home, I was surprised to find a few ants inside of the bottle. I had another bottle of honey is a slightly wider and deeper saucer filled with water, which did not seem to attract ants at all. I don't have the capabilities to set up a camera to capture all this, unfortunately. So, I was wondering whether the ants were able to gauge the distance across the water that they decided to choose the shorter the distance.

Good to see your video. It was interesting to observe the ants were reluctant to make the return crossing. Quite curious.

Thank you for posting this video.

Ken

11/23/2014 01:57:10 am

Hi,
Since I posted this entry I have continued research and observations about ants and their behavior. To answer your question about gauging distance, I now believe that they are unable to determine where something is spatially. If you look at the video you will see that the rock is closer to one edge than the remainder of the edges yet the ants arbitrarily chose the greater distance. I now know that ants can sense well over 400 different odors and I think that this is how they react. One ant possibly fell onto the rock or purposely travelled over the water and leaves a scent, possibly a pheromone, and the other ants travel to the rock even without the food incentive. These are incredible insects and I hope to learn more as I observe and experiment. Thanks for the kind words and question, Ken.

JamAl sad

5/10/2017 06:24:16 pm

I was struck by the fact an ant found its way into a porcelain cup that had the remains of camomile tea with sugar. The surface was dry. I poured a half inch of cold water and watched ant fascinated as it swam to the wall of the cup and labored up to the lip only to be tossed back in.,I pursued this cruelty three times by which time exhaustion set n. I d I'd not have handy a powerful magnifier but was pretty sure the appendages of the ant were mailable enough for it to actually "walk" across rte surface. Would appreciate any comments.

Ken

5/11/2017 10:56:05 am

JamAl sad,
I have seen something similar with a species that I found locally. It seems to depend on the size of the "foot" of the appendage and the weight of the ant. Because of the high surface tension of water, they can walk until the foot coating wears off and they sink to the body and start paddling. It is somewhat similar to the water strider but they have hairs and a coating vs wight that allows them to last much longer. Hope that this helps, Ken.

Pala link

5/19/2017 12:20:13 am

Good

Can Ants Swim?

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