{"id":16164,"date":"2022-08-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-14T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=16164"},"modified":"2022-08-22T11:38:22","modified_gmt":"2022-08-22T09:38:22","slug":"meet-the-animal-architects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/2022\/08\/15\/meet-the-animal-architects\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the animal architects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MEET THE ANIMAL ARCHITECTS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

WE THINK WE\u2019RE PRETTY CLEVER BY BUILDING THE GHERKIN AND THE SHARD, BUT THESE ENTERPRISING ANIMALS CAN CREATE SOME SMART STRUCTURES OF THEIR OWN… SOME OF WHICH EVEN HAVE BUILT-IN AIR CONDITIONING <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WORDS: BEN HOARE <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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LIVING BRIDGES <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Army ants in huge raiding columns will deploy their own bodies to form living bridges so fellow workers can cross gaps quickly. A bridge consists of up to 50 ants and a colony may have 40 or 50 bridges in use at any time. Myrmecologists (people who study ants) at the New Jersey Institute of Technology\u2019s Swarm Lab have worked out a simple rule governing this behaviour. Ants only stay in a bridge if they feel sufficient numbers of other ants scurrying over their backs. To justify investing that much labour, the shortcut has to be popular. If fewer ants cross, forming a bridge isn\u2019t worth the effort \u2013 it\u2019s better for the colony if these ants go around the obstacle the long way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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IT\u2019S A WRAP <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, countless trees were left shrouded in swathes of silk in Pakistan following monsoon rains. It\u2019s thought that the flood waters forced millions of spiders to take refuge in the trees, where they spun these veil-like webs. Though the identity of the spiders in this image is not known, some species will congregate in composite webs, often resembling huge hammocks or sheets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spiders live alone as a rule, but some \u2013 most of which are small and occur in the tropics \u2013 exhibit varying degrees of social behaviour. Communal webs enable them to catch much bigger prey and share the energy-sapping tasks of spinning the webs and maintaining their structure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Occasionally, enormous megawebs appear, covering several hundred square metres in silk, perhaps because a superabundance of prey caused an explosion in the local spider population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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WHEELS OF FORTUNE <\/h4>\n\n\n\n

When first discovered in 1995 near the Japanese island of Amami, these submarine \u2018crop circles\u2019 were a mystery. Were they created by animals, currents or something else? Over 15 years later, divers spotted the seabed sculptor: a tiny pufferfish (Torquigener<\/em> albomaculosus) <\/em>new to science. The male takes around a week to fashion a two-metre-wide nest that dwarfs his 12cm frame. He ploughs through the sediment with his fins and tail whirring to produce symmetrical peaks and troughs. He then sweeps the sandy amphitheatre clean of debris, moving scraps of seaweed or coral to the perimeter. If his labours lure a female, the pair spawn in the middle \u2013 but the moment the eggs hatch, he abandons the nest to start all over again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her book Eye Of The Shoal, <\/em>marine biologist Dr Helen Scales suggests the sculpture may make an ideal soft spot for the developing eggs, with the furrows channelling oxygenated water to the centre. <\/p>\n\n\n\n