Living beyond the limits of survival: wood ants trapped in a gigantic pitfall (2016)

varjag

A unique accumulation of workers (‘colony’) of the wood ant Formica polyctena Först., trapped within an old bunker for storing nuclear weapons, is described. The source of the ‘colony’ is a large colony nesting outdoors, on top of the bunker. Individuals that have fallen down through a ventilation pipe are not able to find their way back to the mother nest. The dictatorship of proletariat but for ants, and inside a Soviet bunker of course. Sometimes I see why people find the idea that there's no God incredulous.

ralfd

Needless sensationalism: I didnt find the term “cannibalistic” on the source page.

neuroticnews25

Flat parts of the earthen mound and the floor of the adjacent spaces were carpeted with bodies of dead ants. Locally the deposits were a few centimetres thick. (...) the number of dead Formica polyctena workers probably amounted to about two million. The cemeteries comprised also remnants of other insects, most probably those caught by foragers of the free-living upper colony that had fallen down. Of other ants, only a head of the Leptothorax sp. worker was found. "Ah yes, that small speck of chitin among 2 million other corpses is obviously a head of the Leptothorax sp. worker."

nickdothutton

[narrator] This was not a story about ants.

alexey-salmin

> The ‘colony’ has evidently produced no offspring, which is due to low (though relatively stable) temperatures and scanty food in the bunker. Isn't it due to the lack of the queen? Colony of worker ants is a dead end

wowczarek

Well I'll be. At least two of the authors are also avid chiropterologists, with an understood penchant for bunkers and other such spaces. One summer in my late teens I sat with two of them in an urban park in NW Poland drinking beer, watching bats getting caught in a net half-submerged in water near a bridge and engaging in impromptu comedy with passers-by asking questions like "good catch? any fish?". Good times. Engaging in field research is a wonderfully rewarding experience, a great way to spend time, meet people and do something meaningful at the same time. If you've never done it - do it. There are plenty of volunteering opportunities - you don't need to be a scientist. Birding, insects, marine life, whatever. Citizen science is also great, but if you get a chance to work alongside scientists, it gets even better. 10/10 good walk, unspoilt.

dsr_

I'm glad I don't think that ants have self-awareness, because this sounds like hell.

gwbas1c

This article keeps coming to the front page every few years; and every few years I keep opening it to look at the pictures. It's just that fascinating!

faiouhsodivwer

Wow, life will find its way

circlefavshape

Maybe eventually the earthen mound they have constructed will reach the level of the hole they're falling through, and they'll be able to rejoin the main colony?

bell-cot

116 comments back in 2019 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21481852

heikkilevanto

I wish the scientists had left a plank or a string leading to the ventilation hole, so the ants could get out, at least to forage for more food. But then again, it would have spoiled this "natural" experiment.

ilamont

The amount of potential food in the bunker, suitable for wood ants, is not known, but the smaller arthropods living there could hardly be enough to allow the workers both temperature regulation of the mound and feeding of offspring. Is cannibalism a possibility?

shmeeed

I still wonder why they don't just leave? I mean, aren't ants capable of walking on the ceiling and up the pipe? What keeps them?

TedDoesntTalk

Picture of the bunker where the ants live: https://jhr.pensoft.net/article/9096/zoom/fig/11/