INSECT ENGINEERS.

Shannon News, 27 July 1928, Page 2

INSECT ENGINEERS.

"Man's respect for the ant will be increased by the latest discovery about these intelligent and industrious Lilliputians,"" says the Daily Heraldr"For many .years scientists have been puzzled by the fact that, in South Africa and other hot countries, the white ants' nests are always satuiated with heated ' water vapour. This mysterious steam supply never fails, even after three years*' drought. The explorer Livingstone believed that the insects had hit on some way of manufacturing water synthetically. And others haphazard solutions. * But now the astonishing sefcret i s out. . During the digging of a well on a Transvaal farmstead a. 2£inch shaft was found naming down into he earth. Careful excavation showed that this miniature boring ran from a neighbouring ants' nost to a reservoir 65ft below the surface, Up and down the shaft passed an endless ehain of white ants carrying water to the nest and to the fungu s gardens which provide their food. It took half-an-hour for each ' water-boy' <to travel down the shaft, draw his load, and return. The convoy never stopped for a moment; the insects climbed on day after day. night after night. Toilers appointed to other tasks during the daytime were, apparently, transferred to the irrigation* shift after sunset, when the unceasing stream of carriers grew thicker and their tiny trurnpetings could be clearly heard., A remarkable story, this tale of the ants and their artesian well—a story fit to rank with the most ingenious achievements in the realms of human engineering."