OIST Study Finds 100 Yellow Crazy Ants Move Like Bacteria in 1- to 2-Second Dashes
Updated
Updated · Earth.com · Aug 8
OIST Study Finds 100 Yellow Crazy Ants Move Like Bacteria in 1- to 2-Second Dashes
1 articles · Updated · Earth.com · Aug 8
Summary
Nearly 100 yellow crazy ants filmed individually in Okinawa moved in short straight runs punctuated by random stops and turns, a pattern researchers said matches models used for swimming bacteria.
More than 24 hours of video showed runs typically lasted 1 to 2 seconds, with heading persistence of 1.7 to 1.9 seconds before motion shifted from near-ballistic travel to diffusion-like wandering.
The team tracked body points with about 0.2 mm average error using SLEAP, but dropped 15 outlier trials and excluded data within 1.5 cm of walls because the arena strongly altered movement.
Those pauses stood out: they followed a power law with no typical duration, echoing patterns seen in desert locusts and hinting at sensing or energy-saving behavior rather than simple random timing.
Published in PLOS Computational Biology, the study offers a compact model for an invasive species' individual movement, though the authors say larger and more complex arenas are needed to test how it forages and spreads.