Particularly when it rains fairly heavily. I mean their colonies are just a network of unground tunnels. One would assume they’d just fill with water.
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Some good answers here, just to add, ants don’t have lungs. They have small holes called spiracles that they can close when thrown into water. Ants have a very slow metabolic rate compared to us so they can hold their breath for the better part of a day. If the ants just wanted to sit in wet dirt and wait the rain out they probably could. Also ants know in advanced when it is going to rain and you will see them very active before heavy rain preping their ant homes or whatever.
The ants go marching one by one,
And they all go marching down,
To the ground, to get out of the rain.
Last hurricane i was in, a whole colony got flooded. They were in a ball,rotating in the water, trying to stay alive. We through a board in the flood waters to give them away out
I’ve seen videos of this! They just hold hands and they begin to float. It’s pretty cool. Check YouTube if you don’t believe me.
When you see them in a ball rolling around in heavy rain it’s because they band together to be above the water. When they roll around, it gives everyone the opportunity to get their turn to get a gasp of air until they can get to solid ground. (I had a friend in college that was an agronomy major. Ants were all the guy talked about, even drunk at a rager lol)
What’s with all these questions about little animals drowning under heavy rain?
Most underground colonies have a system of water traps – hollowed out rooms where water can pool but not advance to the next until the pool is filled. In the traps that are filled with water, the ants can just walk around/above the water to get out
I read once that there is a specific species living in bamboo or something that drinks the water when there is a flood and then discards it outside the nest
Ever see a fire ant raft or ball during a flood? Terrifying
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/31/547541719/what-to-do-when-facing-a-floating-ball-of-fire-ants](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/31/547541719/what-to-do-when-facing-a-floating-ball-of-fire-ants)
There’s an ant colony that appears in our mailbox after heavy rains, eggs and all. They leave after eventually
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