Ant city

[Amari]

Hail another super-organism!
Watch this 3-minute video about a subterranean city-state excavated after pouring in 10 tons of concrete to make a cast of the megalopolis.
Doubtless a sorority living in peaceful harmony without the worry of mortgages, wars, or Brexit.
Or maybe not. Maybe ruled by Big Sister. Maybe dissidents are executed, dismembered and fed to the larvae or sent to the ant gulag. Ant Farm.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Hail another super-organism!
Watch this 3-minute video about a subterranean city-state excavated after pouring in 10 tons of concrete to make a cast of the megalopolis.
Doubtless a sorority living in peaceful harmony without the worry of mortgages, wars, or Brexit.
Or maybe not. Maybe ruled by Big Sister. Maybe dissidents are executed, dismembered and fed to the larvae or sent to the ant gulag. Ant Farm.

Well whatever they were the concrete sure killed the lot..... or was it empty?
A wonderful thing in the true sense of the word nevertheless.

 

[bobba]

I saw this in the original documentary on tv years ago. It was a leaf cutter ant nest in Brazil.

I think they cut it up and transported it away to be displayed somewhere too.

I'm sure they said the nest was abandoned. Leaf cutter ants grow fungus cultures in the chambers. So I don't think they could cast the nest if it was full of "stores".

The company I work for used to be part of a university, one of the neighboring labs cultured and studied leaf cutters. I used to like to go and see them. The fungus cultures were in wide perspex cylinders and it looked like coral. They had little tubes connecting the cilinders and large open top trays for the ants to forage in. Basicaly an observation hive for ants. They used to throw leaves in the trays and you could watch them being processed through the nest.

Anyway looking at the start of the video, you can see some ants going in and out, but not many for the size of the nest. So it looks like an almost dead nest, depleted of population and food.

And they just conveniently found the nest like that..... Right in the middle of what looks like some farmers prime grazing land.....