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Why do ants go nuts if you blow on their nest? (an experiment)

Started By futurebird , Apr 5 2022 6:17 PM

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4 replies to this topic

#1 Offline futurebird - Posted April 5 2022 - 6:17 PM

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Can ants detect CO2 or warm air? Is this why they go crazy if you blow on their nest? I did an experiment to find out. To control the volume of air I used a lens cleaning “puffer” the difference in reactions was pretty noticeable!

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#2 Online bmb1bee - Posted April 5 2022 - 6:42 PM

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I heard that ants react very strongly to CO2 for one reason: because that's what a mammal's breath is. I remember watching a vid that explained how ants are sensitive to CO2 because that's how they react to the breath mammalian predators when they approach a nest. Gonna see if I can find the video again... I'll post it here.

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#3 Offline futurebird - Posted April 5 2022 - 6:57 PM

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I'd love to see that. That was my working theory in the narration of the video. That the ants go crazy to scare off large vertebrates that could exhale CO2 to scare us off. But I needed to know if it was just how they reacted to any kind of blowing air.