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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 25, 2026

Collection and Long-Term Maintenance of Leaf-Cutting Ants Atta in Laboratory Conditions

Collection and Long-Term Maintenance of Leaf-Cutting Ants Atta in Laboratory Conditions

Published on: August 30, 2022

Fire ants perpetually rebuild sinking towers.

Sulisay Phonekeo¹, Nathan Mlot¹, Daria Monaenkova²

¹School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

Royal Society Open Science

|August 10, 2017

Summary

Fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) build tall, bell-shaped towers after floods. These structures emerge through trial and error, with failed sections avalanching until a stable shape is achieved.

Keywords:

bivouac emergent self-assembly swarm

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Area of Science:

Animal behavior
Biophysics
Materials science

Background:

Fire ants (Solenopsis invicta) form large, temporary encampments after floods.
These ant towers can reach heights of over 30 ants.
The structural integrity and construction process of these ant towers remain largely uninvestigated.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the shape and construction rate of fire ant towers built around a central support.
To understand the physical principles governing the stability and growth of these ant structures.
To develop a model predicting ant tower growth based on behavioral rules and adhesion properties.

Main Methods:

Combined experimental and theoretical approaches.
High-speed and X-ray videography to observe tower construction.
Modeling based on ant raft behavior, adhesion, and attachment strength.

Main Results:

Ant towers exhibit a bell shape, similar to structures of constant strength like the Eiffel Tower.
Tower construction involves a continuous process of sinking and rebuilding, akin to multicellular tissue dynamics.
The developed model accurately predicts a decrease in growth rate with increasing support diameter.

Conclusions:

Fire ant towers are built through a dynamic trial-and-error process, leading to emergent stable structures.
The findings provide insights into self-assembly and vertical construction in biological systems.
This research could inspire the development of autonomous, layer-building synthetic swarms.