ANTS DIG FOR WATER SUPPLY

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6632, 11 June 1928, Page 10

ANTS DIG FOR WATER SUPPLY

SCIENTIST SOLVES MYSTERY. Where do ants get tlieir water during drought? Dr. Livingstone thought that they must have discovered a way of manufacturing water synthetically. A South African scientist, E. N. Marais, has hit upon the real solution. It is common knowledge in South Africa that, even after a three years’ drought when there is not a blade of green grass in sight, a white ants' nest is always saturated with heated water vapour. Accident helped Mr. Marais to find out the secret. During the digging of a well on a Transvaal farm, Mr. Marais and others came upon a 2iin shaft running down into the earth. Careful digging proved that the shaft ran from a neighbouring ants' nest to a depth of more than 65ft below the earth’s surface. Dp and down the shaft passed an endless procession of white ants, conveying water to the nest and the miniature gardens "of fungus which form their food supply. By marking individual ants with dots of aniline dye, it was ascertained that they never stopped wmrk, but went on day and night. It took about half an hour for each ant to travel down the shaft, draw his load of water and return to the nest. During the night time, however, the of water-carriers grew thicker. Seemingly toilers employed on other work during the day time were concentrated on the irrigation shaft at night. The incessant trumpeting of the hurrying ants was at this time clearly audible. Mr. Marais also noticed that, though the irrigation shaft zig-zagged east and west, there were no bends north and south. Possibly, he thinks ,thc ants are affected by the earth’s magnetic lines of .force, as arc certain Australian ants.