Fastest animal on the earth? Obviously, everyone of you will give the same answer - Cheetah. But it seems that in the race of who is the faster, one more animal has joined the party. Researchers have found that the?Saharan Silver ant (Cataglyphis bombycina)runs at a speed of 855 millimeters per second! And this makes it the fastest ant on earth.
Isn¡¯t that insane??
According to reports, Sarah Pfeffer, who studies animal behaviour at Ulm University in Germany said, "They fly through the air with no feet on the ground from stride to stride." As per its body length which is 33.6 inches, its speed is 108 times. While, a Cheetah can only manage 16 body lengths per second.?
The silver ant also runs across the Sahara Desert which has a temperature of over 50 degrees celsius. But you must be thinking - how do these ants run so fast? The reason behind that is their long legs that also helps them keep their bodies farther from the scorching sand. Their bodies also produce heat shock proteins even before they leave their nest, to resist the heat.
Watch the video of these ants running across Sahara Desert:
They return to their nests immediately after finding food as they do not want to die because of heat. The scientists also travelled to Douz, which is a town in Tunisia and went through the nearby dunes, just to find the silver hair of the ant which meant that they were in motion there.?
Details of their research have been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology. They also recorded a video just to view the movement of the ants. The footage shows the ants covering 85.5 cm per second in 47 strides and between each stride, every ant touched the ground for seven milliseconds.?
Picture Credits: Screengrab/Youtube
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