The Science of Flying Ants
Those of you that dip in and out of my blogs may remember that I confessed to enjoying flying ant day as one of my favourite days of the year. In fact I even blogged back in August when that day finally happened in my own garden, with pictures to prove it.
Little did I know that during that time, instead if watching the Olympics, a group if scientists and their team of ant enthusiasts across the country were in fact recording the emergence of the flying ants. Proper scientific research into the flying ant phenomena.
Responsible for this research is a Professor Adam Hart from the University of Gloucester. He describes these flying ant spectacles as a nuptial flight, "where males and virgin queens taking part in remarkable mating flights". According to their research they found some correlation between the nuptial flights and weather conditions. This certainly confirms what I had always believed, that the warm humid conditions might trigger the swarming behaviour.
After trawling through over 6000 individual reports from across the country the researchers found that in fact there was not one single day when the ants flew. Actually, this year the flying ants emerged across the country during the whole of July and August although the main flights occurred around two significant peaks of activity on the 24th July and the 8th August.
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/images/flyant9.jpg
So it appears that flying ant day, one of my favourite days of the year does not actually exist at all, this is a little disappointing. However to look on the bright side, it may mean more than one flying ant experience each year.
In 2013 the research gets more detailed and the scientists are recruiting help to document and then collect specimens. Sounds like some science that I would like.
Little did I know that during that time, instead if watching the Olympics, a group if scientists and their team of ant enthusiasts across the country were in fact recording the emergence of the flying ants. Proper scientific research into the flying ant phenomena.
Responsible for this research is a Professor Adam Hart from the University of Gloucester. He describes these flying ant spectacles as a nuptial flight, "where males and virgin queens taking part in remarkable mating flights". According to their research they found some correlation between the nuptial flights and weather conditions. This certainly confirms what I had always believed, that the warm humid conditions might trigger the swarming behaviour.
After trawling through over 6000 individual reports from across the country the researchers found that in fact there was not one single day when the ants flew. Actually, this year the flying ants emerged across the country during the whole of July and August although the main flights occurred around two significant peaks of activity on the 24th July and the 8th August.
So it appears that flying ant day, one of my favourite days of the year does not actually exist at all, this is a little disappointing. However to look on the bright side, it may mean more than one flying ant experience each year.
In 2013 the research gets more detailed and the scientists are recruiting help to document and then collect specimens. Sounds like some science that I would like.
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