The viral TikTok of ants dancing to AC/DC is fake – but their death spirals are scarily real
Sorry, what?
Did you fall for the Instagram video showing an army of ants trapped in a death spiral to the hypnotic riffs of AC/DC?
If so, you weren’t alone. At first glance, it really did look like hundreds of the tiny creatures dancing around a speaker blasting out a rock classic.
The video racked up more than 12 million likes on TikTok and Instagram, and more than a few comments expressing concern for the small but mighty insect army.
But as many others pointed out however, it is fake. Kind of.
While this particular video is very much CGI, as explained by its creator Gabriel Benício, the concept of an ant-powered ‘death spiral’ is completely real – and yet another wonderful example of when nature is stranger than fiction.
Ants, as you probably know, live in huge colonies. They’re not big on independence – even the queen – and tend to stick together without fail.
This attitude (socialist or communist, depending on your point of view) has helped them achieve great things, from towering four-metre high anthills to changing entire landscapes.
But like everything when done to extremes, it can also go horribly wrong.
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In the case of the death spiral, it can be just that – deadly.
Army ants work using smell, not sight. When out searching for food, the army follows the scent of a leader as they forage for snacks.
However, if the leader is knocked off course, perhaps by a fallen log or a predator, the sudden change of direction can bamboozle the ants behind. Separated from the lead ant’s scent, they start circling.
Once the circle is formed, the ants simply continue to follow each other, marching around and around in circles towards nothing but the ant bottom in front.
These spirals, scientifically known as a circular mill formation, can go on for so long that many of the ants simply die from exhaustion, worn out from following the ant in front of them on the endless journey to nowhere.
You may be asking why there aren’t more independent-minded ants that realise after a while this may be a pointless exercise, but a solo ant does not tend to fare very well in the wild, and they have evolved to be part of the colony.
So while staying in the spiral may lead to death, going off solo most definitely will.
The curious phenomenon has no doubt been around for thousands, if not millions, of years, but was first properly investigated by animal psychologist T C Schneirla in the 1930s.
Since then the ant death spiral has captivated many scientists, who still can’t answer for sure why, after all this time, they haven’t learnt not to accidentally circle themselves to death.
A leading theory is that it may actually form part of a rather cruel exercise in population control. Ant colonies are generally home to hundreds of thousands of ants, so losing the odd few thousand here and there might keep a lid on things.
So now you know.
Ant death spirals are real. Ant death spirals triggered by AC/DC are not.
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