Unbelievable Video Footage Shows Millions of Army Ants Forming Bridge to Attack Wasp’s Nest

Incredible footage from Costa Rica that shows millions of army ants teaming up to build a bridge in order to reach a wasp’s nest with their attack has gone viral, and it is easy to understand why.

The video was initially shared on Twitter by electrical engineer, and apparently part-time ant enthusiast, Francisco Boni, who added the following caption:

“Attack of legionary ants (also known as army ants or marabunta) to a wasp honeycomb. Impressive the level of swarm intelligence and collective computation to form that bridge.”

In the thread, Boni elaborated on the incredible scene of army ants going to war with wasp’s nest by saying:

“When this type of attack happens, the wasps usually escape and the ants do not leave until they’ve completely looted the honeycomb, carrying pupae, larvae, and eggs, as well as some adults who did not manage to escape.”

“They can even build across the water!”

It’s amazing how magnificent the natural world can be.

Boni also said that it’s hard for many different types of ants to walk upside down. It seems that ants find it easier to follow the path over a bridge that “goes down and then up.”

“They probably started as a straight path and started adding ants as gravity pulled the whole bunch down, so the bridge doesn’t end up breaking due to linear tension. So the first minutes they built the bottom part (looks less vertical) and added on the extremes on necessity,” wrote another Twitter user, @godie1998.

“It’s only a hypothesis but – proportional to time – their bridge is perfectly reflective of gravitational pull of an object on free fall (so, as time went on, they expanded the bridge more frequently due to increased weight).”

Nature truly is a wonder to behold.