Flying Ant Day: the science behind the summer swarms

As if finding a rain-free day for a weekend barbecue wasn’t hard enough, we have to suffer the annual deluge of flying ants

Did a swarm of frisky flying insects put a dampener on your weekend barbecue? Well, there’s a good reason – for a brief period each summer, millions of flying ants appear in Britain for a short frenzy of mid-air mating. This year, what’s known as Flying Ant Day fell on Sunday and colonies were spotted erupting out of pavements, spilling into gardens, bedrooms, on to sofas and even riding the London Underground.

Flying Ant Day is actually a bit of a misnomer, says Professor Adam Hart of the University of Gloucestershire. A flying ant survey he has run with the Royal Society of Biology since 2012 has found that the idea of one synchronised 24-hour period of emergence is a myth. Sometimes they come out over a few days, or even weeks.

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from Network Front | The Guardian http://bit.ly/1M0T2mD