"When the water level began to rise, the colony was seen gathering their young and uniting before being swept away by the waterfall and into the pool."

"However, when they try to swim, their actively kicking legs push against each other. Fire ants, consisting of 10 or more individuals, are forced to unite by a phenomenon called the 'Cheerios effect,' which is caused by surface tension. This occurs when small objects, like Cheerios in a bowl of milk, create a concave indentation on the liquid's surface that pulls nearby objects together into several clusters. Brief paraphrase."

"Although the team did not count how many ants were on the raft, Markham said "there are 5,000 ants on this occasion" and they found ants collecting trapped air bubbles to keep the raft afloat and remain buoyant."