Ants!

I remember getting an ant farm one Christmas back when I was in about the 4th grade. I had lots of pets as a kid so my first thought was something like, "ants? boring!" I was wrong though. Once we actually got the ants it was pretty fun watching them build their little tunnels all through the sand in the bottom of the ant farm. I had a lot of fun with it for almost a year before letting the surviving ants go in my back yard.

Recently a team of researchers decided to see just what an ant hill looked like underground. They planned to pour cement into the top of the hill and let it harden. Imagine their surprise when they found out that it took more than 10 TONS of cement to fill in all the tunnels!

After letting the cement harden they excavated, or dug out, all the surrounding dirt. The result was a cement cast of all the tubes, rooms, and burrows that the ants had dug. This ant city was really amazing in both size and complexity!

Check out the clip below from youtube showing part of the excavation. It just might give you something to think about next time you spot an ant!