Fire Ants Turn Into a Stinging Life Raft to Survive Floods
From Deep Look
4 min3rd4th5th6thScience
Summary
When floods hit, fire ants link their bodies into a living raft that floats until they reach dry land. Deep Look shows how thousands of ants survive together by doing something none could do alone.
Viewer safety
Ages 7+Mild peril
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Talk about it
A single fire ant would drown, but thousands linked together float. By joining into a living raft, the whole colony survives a flood — teamwork as a survival tool.
- How do fire ants survive a flood that would drown a single ant?
- What can the group do that one ant cannot?
- Why is working together an advantage for the colony?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: colony, group, survive, cooperate.
Try it: Try to float a single paperclip, then link several and rest them on water's surface. Write how many together can do more than one.