By CHRISTINE HAUSER
AUG. 30, 2017
The streets in Texas flooded by Hurricane Harvey brought upheaval to nature’s earthbound creatures, throwing them out of their natural habitats into a world overwhelmed with water.
People sloshed through chest-high waters clutching children. Shadowy alligators floated in yards. A man caught a fish in his house. Bats were priedfrom bridges. Livestock paddled through streets where they were once fleet of foot.
But certainly among the creepiest images to emerge were the rust-colored mounds formed by colonies of fire ants, the nightmarish spawn of the storm that first made landfall last week and soaked South Texas with record-setting rains. At least 31 deaths have been confirmed.
Soon after the waters rose, the insects’ enterprise and instinct for communal self-preservation kicked in. They rose up from their underground tunnel systems and literally stuck together to survive, linking their claws and clinging to one another in massive rafts and balls that floated and spun in the current.
More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/fire-ants-harvey-hurricane-storm.html
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