The Behavior of Red Wood Ants Could Someday be Used to Predict Earthquakes

According to scientists the behavior of  ants could soon offer the easiest way to predict major earthquakes in zones where earthquakes are endemic. In a recent study that was focused on the 2008 deadly earthquake in Turkey, a local observer, who interestingly was not a researcher, reported witnessing a very bizarre and extremely unusual behavior of ants a  few hours before the July massive earthquake of 2008. Mr. Kadirir noted the ants were behaving in a distressed manner while others  even started dying mysteriously on their own 24 hours before the earthquake stuck. Kadirir was reported to have informed authorities about this unusual ant behavior but nobody took his observations seriously. 

In 2009 scientist carried out another study called AntCam Operation in the  Laacher-See Region (Eastern Eifel) in the attempt to corroborate the Kadirir claim that ants actually detect earthquakes. The  AntCam Operation focused mainly on two red wood ant nests and the data being recorded mainly showed the ant behavior on a daily basis. It revealed that the  ants’ normal activity begin at 7.30 am starting with the opening of their nest exits to allow in fresh air, they then maintain a high level of activity until 17:00 hrs when their activities slow down and they return to their nests.

When an earthquake of a magnitude 3.2 struck in September  2009 close to the nests of the red wood ants under study, the researchers analysed the ant activity before and after the quake and noted something unusual. For example, instead of following their normal routines on the day of the quake, the ants did not go back into their nests, instead, they stayed on top of the nest with very minimum level of activity. They kept dormant there and resumed their normal activity until 10.am a day after the quake and not 7.30 am as was normally the case before the earthquake.

Although these findings cannot yet be relied upon, it must be appreciated that there are as many as 14,000 species of ants out there.  The type that was observed in Turkey  and many others need to be studied even more because the safety of humanity could one day be dependent on these little creatures.