# Do ants know its going to rain?

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [November 3, 2002, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138 "2002-11-03T21:52:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![Obvious\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Obvious\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obvious_Guy)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2002, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138/1 "2002-11-03T21:52:26Z")

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It’s been my observation that ants seem to build up there pile before a heavy rain comes. So do they know rain is coming, and if so… how?

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### Author: ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2002, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138/2 "2002-11-03T22:35:23Z")

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I’m not sure if ‘know’ is the right word; as far as we know, no individual ant is smart enough to actually ‘know’ stuff at all (in an abstract sense); the colony responds to stimuli including atmospheric temperature, pressure and humidity.

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### Author: ![aeropl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f05b48/32.png) [@aeropl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aeropl)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2002, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138/3 "2002-11-04T05:30:37Z")

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Ants are always building up their piles. They don’t have television, so they have a lot of free time.

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### Author: ![Obvious\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Obvious\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obvious_Guy)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2002, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138/4 "2002-11-04T08:04:46Z")

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haha funny 😛

No seriously, the pile will get higher before a flood.

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### Author: ![\_xiao\_wenti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b782af/32.png) [@\_xiao\_wenti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_xiao_wenti)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2002, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-ants-know-its-going-to-rain/135138/5 "2002-11-04T10:26:35Z")

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I live in fire ant territory and have not noticed any real changes in ant hill geometry before the rain. What I have noticed is that once the weather changes – like the cooler weather of fall – the ant hills dramatically change shape. The hills that were spread out on the ground are now errect. This serves some ventilation purpose but prob just minimizes surface area.