Nature is a lot of things, beautiful, captivating, enthralling and more. But above all, it is resilient. Recently, this was proved when researchers in Poland found a colony of ants trapped inside an abandoned nuclear power plant.
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What was supposed to be a simple discovery turned into once in a lifetime look at the extreme lengths animals take to survive in inhospitable conditions and how we humans should learn a few things from one of the smallest insects in the world.
Looking For Bats
It was never the intention of the Polish scientists to make such a captivating discovery, in fact, they were researching bat colonies and how living close to an abandoned nuclear power plant affected their day-to-day life.
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In the process of all this, the Polish scientists discovered a bunker that had once been part of the now-abandoned nuclear power plant, they expected to find nothing inside except decomposing leaves and dirt. Of course, they were wrong.
Ants Everywhere
After much struggle, the rusted iron door to the bunker was finally opened and what was inside left the researchers shocked. The once state-of-the-art facility was left decaying and sealed shut.
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The dark and damp atmosphere was perfect for bats but inside, they found no sign of them. Instead, a huge swarming ant colony greeted them. With millions of ants living inside the sealed bunker.
No Way Out
You might think that finding an ant colony in the middle of the forest shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise for the experts but it was. Because this bunker had been carefully sealed tight before it was abandoned.
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Technically, the ants had no resources to survive inside the bunker. In fact, they shouldn’t even have been there in the first place. Despite all these facts, the ant colony was thriving inside the bunker without access to food and water.
Strange Yet Forgotten
The experts remarked at the resilience of the ants and searched the bunker further to find out where they had entered the space. Most of them couldn’t find a clear route for their entry or eventual exit.
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Some assumed that maybe the ants had travelled through a ventilation shaft which was now closed behind them and with no way out, the colony was trapped forever. The team discussed if they should intervene but thought to let nature run its course and left the bunker and the ant colony where it was.
Moving On
The colony on its own was doomed for sure, the Polish scientists knew that well but they too were on a mission and schedule of their own and couldn’t waste sparse resources on a rescue mission for ants.
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So, the ants were left to eventually die and the experts moved on. However, this wasn’t the end of the story like many of you expect. In fact, it was the start of a strange and mesmerising discovery.
Two Years Later
A few years later, the same group of researchers came back to the area to continue their study of bats and again crossed paths with the sealed bunker. The group was expected to meet only death inside.
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But when they opened the bunker, what they found left them gasping. Amazingly, the ant colony hadn’t died off yet, and their numbers showed no signs of dwindling. In fact, the ant colony had significantly grown in size!
But How?
The ants had no fresh air, no way to source food or water and for two years had been completely left in the dark and damp bunker. It was practically impossible for them to survive!
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Yet, here they were thriving! Ants are known to be incredibly resourceful but this was something the scientist had never seen before. They knew that they had to switch their study from bats to these ants to find out how they had survived.
Adapt Or Die
The team went full force ahead into learning about ants and found out that this might not be a completely isolated event. Ant colonies around the world had been documented living inside walls, under concrete, and even inside a car engine.
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The only major difference though that all the other colonies had only managed to survive, losing their numbers until they finally found help yet this colony was growing in extreme conditions without any proper resources.
A Closer Look
Somehow these ants had managed to find a way to resources and the researchers needed to know-how. And after they had transported the ants to their lab and taken a closer look at them, they finally realized their secret.
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Which was a bit stomach-churning but of course, mother nature is cruel and the team knew that ants like any other animal could and would go to extreme lengths to eat in order to survive.
Every Ant For Himself
The trapped ants inside the bunker had resorted to eating their own kind as a source of food! Yes, these were cannibal ants and under a microscope, the team found ant bite marks on both alive and dead ants.
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Even strange than the cannibalism was that all the bite marks were usually found in one specific area on all the ants inside the colony, the abdomen. And yes, this story is about to get more gruesome.
What’s Mine Is Yours
Before we move on, you should know that life inside the ant colony is one of sharing resources and working as a team. Ant’s are programmed to die for the greater good of the colony and unlike us humans, feel no emotion attached to such decisions.
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This explains why the bite marks were directed towards the abdomen since the other ants thought that the food stored inside the ant should be rightfully shared with the rest of the colony. This is why it didn’t take long for this colony of ants to resort to cannibalism.
Harsh Yet Effective
Your stomach might be churning from this fact but for this ant colony, it worked. This sort of desperate desire for survival is deeply embedded especially in ants. For example, some ant colonies have even managed to survive floods by creating rafts made up entirely of their own bodies.
This way of life might be hard for us to understand but in the ruthless world of mother nature, it works. And with all their questions finally answered, the team decided it was time to help the colony out.
A Way Out
The researchers transported the ants back to the bunker and this time rather than leaving them alone to fend for themselves they created a bridge of sorts using a two-by-four to help aid the ants to freedom.
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The way to salvation was clear, all the ants had to do was follow it. But the team knew it was going to take time and left the bunker and came back after a full year. Inside the bunker, another surprise awaited them.
They Were Gone
The makeshift escape route had worked. The colony was gone and out in the wild. For so many years, they had lived in the dark, struggling to find food but now the colony was finally free.
Further Understanding
The most likely outcome is that the colony would not pose a threat to the forest. With their natural resources back, the ants would have gone back to having plenty of food and wouldn’t cannibalise.
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On top of that, the area was full of Alcon blue butterflies which are known to be the biggest predators of ants – thus controlling their population and ensuring that the ecosystem stays in balance.
A Great Insight
This trapped ant colony and the research regarding its survival started out to satisfy the curiosity of researchers but ended up revealing major behavioural aspects about the insects which had never been seen before.
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Other researchers remarked on the importance and one said that the study “added a dimension to the great adaptive ability of ants to marginal habitats and suboptimal conditions, as the key to understanding their unquestionable eco-evolutionary success.”
Not The Only One
While this ant colony living near the nuclear plant managed to protect itself from radiation, doesn’t mean that all animals are so lucky. For those affected during the Chernobyl Accident in 1986, both humans and animals learned how to adapt.
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You might have heard all the conspiracy theories about mutant animals and even humans found still living in the radioactive site but after 30 years, we finally know exactly what happened to the plants and animals left behind.
Not Easy
During the evacuation, it is rumoured that Soviet forces ended up killing thousands of pets in the area to prevent radiation from spreading through the abandoned dogs and cat’s furs and while that might be true, this wasn’t a sure way to prevent the spread.
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Many dogs managed to stay hidden and nowadays, their descendants roam free inside Chernobyl even today. But living 30 years inside the radioactive site hasn’t turned any of the dog’s into mutants.
Hoax
In fact, this belief that animals inside Chernobyl are somehow different from those outside the area is completely false and many use this false assumption for fame. A recent video, which showed large Catfish swimming in Chernobyl raised many eyebrows.
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Everyone assumed that the radiation in the area had caused the growth spurt, until Dr Timothy Mousseau, one of the lead biologists investing in Chernobyl’s natural populations debunked this theory.
Explanation
He remarked that normally mutations don’t lead to ‘large size’ in catfish. He also added that usually, mutations cause fish to “grow less, be less capable of catching food, and tend to not live as long.”
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According to Mousseau, the size of this catfish isn’t unusual at all. Wels catfish, the kind in Chernobyl’s cooling pond, can reach up to 200 pounds in the wild. So, the video was a simple yet effective way of propagating a false narrative that radiation levels in Chernobyl are causing animal mutations.
Mutants
Though, that doesn’t mean that it was never the case. It is expected that the first generation of animals born right after the Chernobyl accident might have major deformities.
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But this also meant that they never lived more than a few hours and, only those animals with healthy genes survive today. Though, the investigation into the biodiversity at Chernobyl and other radioactive sites is ongoing.
A New Way
Many of the studies have revealed that due to the lack of human intervention, many of the local species have actually flourished after the Chernobyl accident. The Eurasian Lynx, which was nearly extinct in all of Europe has its highest population in the affected region.
The myth and fear around nuclear plant sites, especially those which malfunctioned is one that is deeply ingrained in us but thankfully, despite all the horrors of radiation, it looks like nature has managed to survive through it all.