FIRE-FIGHTING ANTS.
A remarkable example cf insect sagacity is given by a French woman, daughter of the botanist, M. Gaston Bonnier, who declares that red ants organise themselves into fire brigades in case of fire, and put the fire out. Mme. Combes carried out a series of experiments at the Fontainbleau biological laboratory with the large colonies of red ants which are kept there (says the Paris correspondent of the Daily Mail). She placed a lighted cigarette on one of the ant hills, and immediately the alarm was given, and the insect fire brigade swarmed around and put out the fire by throwing formic acid on the smouldering tobaccq. The experiment was repeated several times with a smouldering cigarette, and Mme Combfs then planted in one of the ant hills a lighted taper, and the ants put this out also in about a minute. Twice over-keen ants which were in danger of being burned to death by approaching the flames too closely were seized by other ants and dragged into safety.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/PUP19290509.2.5
Bibliographic details
Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 287, 9 May 1929, Page 1
Word Count
171FIRE-FIGHTING ANTS. Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 287, 9 May 1929, Page 1
Using This Item
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Putaruru Press. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in