SUICIDAL ANTS

Sounds strange, but its true there are some species of ant known as Army Ants which
are known to commit mass suicides. They start as a small group of ants circling
endlessly in a small circle, slowly these ants are joined by a large swam of other ants,
all circling in an endless loop making the circle bigger and bigger. This whole cycle
continues until all of them drop dead of exhaustion and hunger. Below is the picture
depicting there death march.

Now let us see how actually this phenomenon occurs:-

History
This behavior was first discovered by William Mortan Wheeler in 1910, where he
observed the ant circle which spontaneously emerged and remained active for more
than 46 hours, research on this was formally conducted by Theodor Schneierla a
renowned zoo psychologist who published his paper on 1944 on this strange ant
behavior. One of the excerpts from his published paper is as follows-

“On the spot of yesterday's phenomenon little or no circling is to be seen. The entire
area is strewn with the bodies of dead and dying Ecitons. A few of the survivors wander
about slowly, while no more than three dozen of them form a small ... and rather
irregular circular column in which they plod around slowly, counterclockwise."
Interestingly, other nearby ant species made use of their fallen comrades: "various small
myrmecine and dolichoderine ants of the neighborhood are busy carting away the
dead."

The Ant Milling

Army ants — unlike most other ant species — are blind. They also lack permanent
nesting sites. Instead of living at a single site, army ant colonies are constantly on the
march looking for food. As the first ant in line travels it leaves behind a pheromone trail
that other ants sniff out and follow. When this system works well, it allows front ants to
lead the masses to food. But for some reason if the ant’s algorithm fails, the pheromone
trail flow back to each other leading into an endless loop, which the following ants are
forced to follows, since they are blind and are now doomed (sic).
So we can see these ants teach us an important lesson, don’t follow your leader blindly
and there can be heavy price to pay (Humor intended)