this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2026
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Fire ants will form rafts after floods. Some being able to stay afloat for weeks! (lemmy.ml)
submitted 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by Egriaga@lemmy.ml to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] folekaule@lemmy.world 14 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (4 children)

I remember hearing about this in reports from major hurricanes in the South. Sounds pretty horrifying to be stranded on a roof or floating around on your own makeshift raft and then happening upon one of these ant rafts of doom.

Edit: thanks for the nightmares everyone. That'll teach me to read Lemmy right before bedtime.

[–] Blooper@lemmy.world 4 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Fun story - as a kid my backyard in-ground pool would occasionally get these grapefruit sized ant rafts. No idea why or how they would do it, but somehow they'd find themselves floating around in there. And if you don't look too closely it just looks like a dead leaf that landed in the pool.

Dove in one hot summer day. Came up for air. Facefull of ants. Never again.

[–] tipicaldik@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

middle school, 1970's NW Florida... our phys. ed. field would flood out pretty bad whenever it would rain a lot, so on those occasions we'd have a free period to just screw around and socialize. On this particular day, me, a scrawny little bug-eyed ginger kid who got picked on pretty regularly, was being chased by a group of other kids who really wanted to torture me some more. I decided to veer off through the knee-deep flooded PE grounds, which allowed me to escape my tormentors, but also gave me the opportunity to learn first hand that fire ants do indeed float in large masses, and are quite eager to swarm up on the first thing that gets within reach.

[–] huquad@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 hours ago

Can confirm, or if you have to walk in the water. Just one more thing to watch out for. Regular ants are bad enough, fire ants can all go to hell.

[–] nomy@lemmy.zip 11 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

My first thought was floating along and brushing up against it, absolutely terrifying.

[–] Egriaga@lemmy.ml 3 points 5 hours ago

They bit the T A R outta me