![Why Do Army Ants Commit Suicide? Why Do Army Ants Commit Suicide?](https://m5.paperblog.com/i/57/578938/why-do-army-ants-commit-suicide-L-aBrEd4.jpeg)
There's a price for blindly following those in front of you. Take army ants for instance. These aggressive insects have a dangerous tendency to commit mass suicide just because they're following the leader.
This bizarre phenomenon - in which ants circle around and around until they all drop dead of exhaustion - is called an 'ant mill.' More colloquially, it's often referred to as an 'ant death spiral.' It happens when a group of army ants separated from the main foraging party lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle.
(via Look At This...)