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Tue 17 Feb, 2015 06:25 am
So I have a question. There's a pool at the apartment I live in, and over the years I have noticed something peculiar.
The ants continually drop dead ants into the pool.
This is something that I and my wife have observed almost every time we have been at the pool. We'd watch ants crawl over the edge carrying another ant, and then drop them.
Thoughts?
@Shonsu,
They're following the last wishes of the ant by providing burial at sea!
@Shonsu,
That's an interesting behavior. I've not heard of that before.
It's possible that it's just a nest cleaning strategy to prevent disease from entering the colony and water is just a convenient dumping ground.
Many birds have a nest cleaning behavior that involves carrying the feces of their offspring away from the nest and dropping it somewhere so that predators can not follow the scent back to the nest.
@rosborne979,
After reading several articles, I think that your ants have simply decided that your pool is their colony garbage dump and they are putting all their trash there. Sort of like when we dump stuff in the ocean.
@Shonsu,
Apparently, they were ant-agonized.
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