Why the ants in this video kept crawling around an iPhone
Okay, what we’re seeing here (probably) isn’t a bizarre ant ritual passed down from generation to generation, hailing the iPhone as their new queen and overlord. The video’s description on YouTube claims the insects acted that way, because they were affected by the “electromagnetic wave of an incoming call.” University of New England associate professor Nigel Andrew agrees: “[They] have magnetic receptors in their antennae. If they’re travelling long distances they use magnetic cues from the earth to know if they are going north, east, south or west.”
However, Simon Robson (a social insect researcher) says ants are prone to crawling around in circles even without a gadget in the middle. Plus, it could be the result of losing the pheromone trail they need to follow the rest of the group. That’s just the way their species are wired, so we might merely be seeing ants being ants doing an ant-y thing. Whatever the real reason is, you can watch the insects worship swirl around the device below.
Filed under:
Misc, Mobile, Apple
Via:
Yahoo
Tags: ants, apple, iphone, mobilepostcross, mysteriousantritual
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