Or at least until it dies of thirst or hunger or whatever?
We’ve been having some sort of lady-buggish beetle hatching out the past few days. Last night I picked up my water glass to drink and only just in time saw that one of these little brown bugs was walking around atop the rim of the glass. Ick. I set the glass down, figuring to deal with it in a minute, but we got to talking, and it was at least five minutes before I noticed the glass again … and the bug was still walking the rim.
So I pointed it out to hubby, and we both watched as the bug made four complete laps, never deviating from perched right atop the rim. Not going down inside the glass or down the outside, just around and around on the very top of the rim like it was a race track or something. (The Waterglass 500?)
I wonder if the bug was ‘stuck’ there due to some collision between a simple behavioral rule (Always climb up, that’s where the juicy leaves are.) and the abnormal ‘infinite’ top surface of this human created object?
We’d stopped watching, it’s not exactly the most exciting spectator sport, but the bug was still trundling along when I cleared the table after dinner.
I would rescue the bug. Perfectly circular objects aren’t found in nature, and even if the bug figures it out, it may have used up a lot of energy and built up a lot of thirst and hunger by the time it does.
I once saw a video about army ants, which described a similar situation. Army ants are blind and they navigate around by following scent trails laid down by other army ants.
What occasionally happens is one ant or a small group of ants will inadvertently form a circular path. Other ants, coming upon this path, will start following the trail. All of these ants are laying down scents, which reinforces the strength of the trail. But the trail doesn’t go anywhere; it’s a circular path. All of the ants on the trail are following their own scents.
Many commentators have reported that ants will keep moving in these ant mills or death spirals until they die. Because who doesn’t love a good metaphor. And in some cases that does happen. But the report I watched said it’s usually not true. Biologists have observed that most ant mills spontaneously break up. There apparently are biological triggers that tell the ants to stop following this particular trail which isn’t going anywhere and look for a better trail.
Ants won’t cross chalk for whatever reason. As a kid, I used to entertain myself by drawing circles around ants on the sidewalk just to watch them march around the inside edge. Once I forgot to open the circle for them and came back a few days later and they were all gone. It wasn’t until much later that I realized the ants didn’t escape, they either died and their bodies blew away or were eaten by birds.
Er, sorta. I took the glass to the door and blew it off outside, but given the temperatures we’re having, I doubt that it was going to live long and prosper.
Why are the silly bugs hatching out now, anyway? There’s nothing around to eat.
I once had a camping fry-pan, with a foldable wire loop handle. One morning, I turned it on, and a cockroach started looking for avenues of escape. The handle seemed promising, so the bug marched out to cooler footfalls. At the turnaround of the loop, it started getting warmer, so he turned back at the far turn, only to discover that all roads led to hot Rome. It was amusing to watch the bug frantically run back and forth. Sadly, i exterminated the unhappy bug in the garburator.
