Ant colony alarm response

This video shows the behavior of a clonal raider ant colony before and after stimulation with an alarm pheromone. Initially, the ants are mostly clustered into a nest pile consisting of adult workers and eggs. Then, the experimenter presents a piece of filter paper soaked in alarm pheromone, placing it near the colony (not recorded in the video). The ants respond behaviorally to the alarm pheromone by increasing their locomotion, disassembling the nest pile, and fleeing the initial nest chamber. The video is sped up 8x. CREDIT: Lindsey Lopes