In the desert of North Africa, German researchers are studying ants that whiz across sand dunes at lightning speed. Video recordings reveal that it is probably the fastest species of ants in the world. The researchers also believe they know what the reason for the rush is.

Species of ant

Sprinting in the sweltering heat of the Tunisian midday sun doesn’t sound tempting to most people. However, it is vital for a particular species of ant. Because during the hot time of the day, she looks for food in her habitat, the desert of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. This consists of carrion, mostly insects that have died in the heat. The Saharan silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina) reaches speeds that are likely to put all other ants in the shade, as researchers at the University of Ulm have now discovered.

Ant Speed

The scientists around the head of the Institute for Neurobiology, Harald Wolf, filmed the ants with video cameras near the Tunisian oasis town of Douz in order to find out their running style. They measured top speeds of up to 0.855 meters per second, with which the animals whetted over the sand, which was more than 60 degrees Celsius, as the researchers report in the “Journal of Experimental Biology”. Read also ant in hindi. The ant covers a distance of 108 times in one second according to its own body length. That corresponds to a speed of around three kilometers per hour.

Comperasition About Silver Ant

That may not sound like a lot, but extrapolated to human standards it is enormous: a person would have to be faster than 500 kilometers per hour – converted to our leg length – to be able to stand up to the silver ant. The sprinter Usain Bolt doesn’t even manage a tenth of this speed. The silver ants also belong to the top group among insects. Only the Australian sand runner and a type of mite from the US state of California are faster. The latter, however, is three times as fast as the silver ant.

It is astonishing that the nimble animals also depend on a closely related species of ant, Cataglyphis fortis, with significantly longer legs. The silver ants have to make up for the obvious disadvantage of leg length with a special running style, according to the university. Their video recordings showed that the silver ant can gallop into a kind of gallop in which none of its legs sometimes touch the ground. “Overall, the silver ants show almost perfect coordination: the three legs that belong together work almost synchronously, which means that the body mass is evenly distributed,” says co-author Sarah Pfeffer.

Don’t sink into the sand

But why this rush? The Ulm researchers suspect that the fast running is due to the animal’s habitat. Since they move on sand dunes, they should minimize the risk of sinking. The quick and perfectly coordinated movements seem to be an advantage on this type of surface. The long-legged species Cataglyphis fortis, however, lives in a shallow salt flat – therefore it can allow itself a more moderate pace than its hasty relatives.

The silver ant’s high speed may also have something to do with the heat of the sand or the surrounding air. Because, as it turned out, the ants ran significantly slower in cooler conditions. In the laboratory in Ulm, which is only ten degrees Celsius cool, the animals virtually strolled and reduced their pace to six centimeters per second – or just 0.2 kilometers per hour.