Texans shaken as thousands of fire ants seen forming rafts on river using their bodies
Thousands of fire ants have been spotted floating on floodwaters through the Texas city and forming rafts using their bodies with residents now reporting the gross behavior.
KXAN Austin took to X to post a video taken by Austinite David Todd of the little critters, seen nestled into a large cluster in the waters of Lake Travis.
X users weighed in on the scary sight.
'A floating ball of pure hate,' one observed.
'I've done more than seen them. I've run into them at night wading out to the ramp on my dock when the lake is rapidly rising,' another wrote. 'Sucks.'
'Bring out the torch,' someone else suggested.
The pesky bugs, which can cause painful stings, are rife in Texas. But when their underground nests flood, they sink their teeth into each other, interlock their limbs and create rafts to stay alive.
'It's called a self-organizing or self-assembling process. And it's something only social insects do,' Ed LeBrun, a research scientist at the University of Texas' Brackenridge Field Lab, told the outlet.
'There are a lot of other structures that ants make in a similar way. For example, army ants will make bridges across rivers.'
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